Villa Belvedere Florence

... B we had booked… it was a restored castle on top of the hills in Tuscany… after much winding roads on what appeared to be a single road to nowhere we found it and it was worth the effort…..we sat on to of the hill looking at olive groves and the hills beyond.. Magnificent…. Dinner was a Florentine steak.. Yes just one steak between 4 of us.. The biggest T-bone in the world… amazingly tender .. View from top of mountain great….

... I had been told that the end of the hike was the best part, finishing with a beach that is more than welcome after a tough hike in the sun. We didn’t finish the hike until almost 7 and it had rained a little… not exactly encouraging us to jump in the water. So instead we got a bottle of wine and watched the thunderstorm that was brewing offshore. I even got a couple lightning photos because I’m that ...

... locals. The food was all great, the wine was great, and the experience of stumbling across a hidden gem like that was excellent. We all sprawled out in the park near a yard full of farm animals for the rest of the afternoon and it was brilliant.

As far as Florence itself, I saw what I needed to see. David was more impressive than I expected, certainly living up to the hype more than the ...

... too, and it really contributed to the experience. We also toured the Pitti Palace and stumbled upon some famous art we didn't even know was there. Among the cheap wine and free food, we learnt cool facts about this medieval place and the ruling of the Medici family. Also, (we didn't go into any) but Florence most likey has the best shoe shopping in the world. And a shoe museum. Just saying......Italy was off to a sweet start.

Now.. your Rome update!

Jus and Mur

... Ponte Vecchio was also the only bridge not to be destroyed by the Nazis in 1944. Today it is just full tourists and overpriced shops.

We made our way up to Piazza del Duomo where the cities most iconic land mark is, the Duomo. One of the worlds largest Cathedrals (the fourth to be exact) its red tiled dome dominates the Florence sky line. Personally the mix of Green, Pink and White just doesn't ...

... are more guidelines than deadlines, and did I mention the trains don’t have A/C sometimes??

Well, there. I got my rant about Italian trains out. I am out of Italy now and I am alive. So it couldn’t have been that bad.

After leaving the train station, I hopped a bus to Fiesole, a town on a mountainside on the outskirts of Florence, to check out the Villa Le Balze, a villa gifted to Georgetown University by John D ...

... long you have your fingers crossed that you are not going to get lost. We eventually find the Porta Romana, and enter the old town, and immediately come across the problem of one-way streets and limited access. Out hotel is on the north bank of the Arno , and we are on the south. We have to cross the Arno three times in order to get to our hotel, which is right beside the British Consulate (hence the name, Pensione Bretagna, not because it's ...