FLORENCE........

Heard so many good things about Florence and yes they were all right! First night the bus went on a walking tour of Florence which included a dinner at a place called Red Garter. It was authentic Italian but it was still good. After this we went next door to the karaoke bar, that was hilarious. It's funny how people think they can sing so well when drunk.   I didn't have a late one because I had a day horse riding in the Tuscan countryside.  This was so cool, spent about 90 mins just riding through the beautiful vineyards and forest surround the horse ranch. It was so cool being back on a horse again, it's been years. After the ride we were taken to this beautiful pool where we just relaxed and drank wine until lunch was ready. This lunch was awesome, it was your typical Italian feast. Bread, cheeses, tomatoes, olives, olive oil, pasta, panacota, red wine and coffee to finish off.  We spent about 4 hours there just chilling, it was so good. It was now time to go see a medieval castle and have our wine tasting. All up we tried 4 wines. All so good. Had a chance to wander the castle walls and take pictures. It was about a 40 min drive back to Florence. We had the funniest guide. I'm sure he thought he was a DJ he had the disco bus going and all of us singing along. Best 40 min drive I've been on for a while.  Didn't get back to the hostel until about 11pm.  It was such a massive day.   In the morning I went to visit museums and some sites. Got to see the real "David", there r 3 David's in Florence. The other 2 r smaller and one in bronze.  The original David is massive and so beautiful. Hard to imagine that he was made from 1 piece of marble!  After seeing the museums and more of the sites I spent the next 4 hours just walking around getting lost, didn't want to use a map just wanted to explore. Easy to do in Florence and not really get lost as such as its not that big a place. It was amazing and so beautiful. An Italian man tried to pick me up, his rise was to ask me the time and then he went from there. He was charming and cute, it was flattering to see just how far and how charming he was prepared to go.  Walked along   the only bridge in Florence that Hitler spared in the war when he decided to totally aniliate the city. He spared this bridge because it was so beautiful to him. It was pretty but not the prettiest I have ever seen. Got back to my room and decided I needed a hairy desperately so walked down the road booked in and then just chilled. The people in the salon were nice, my hairdresser another charmer. Anyway by now it was almost time for my night time bike tour.  I was looking forward to this even tho I was revisiting most of the sites I had already been to but we were going to 1 that I had deliberately left off - Michael Angelo's lookout, this is a hill above Florence where you get a view overlooking the entire city of Florence, it was amazing. We got there just on dusk and I saw the city another way, so glad I did it.  On the way back we stopped for our gellato, my last in Italy. The gellato here is soooo good, I had Kiwi and mandarin.  Rode back about 10.45 finished packing and pretty much jumped into bed, Florence had wrecked me even though I hadn't spent much of my time here drinking at all, it was all the exploring and the fresh country air. I did love Florence and will be back again one day. <3