Of course we enjoyed Florence! How could one not? It is an interesting place to be even if you only walked the streets and enjoyed the atmosphere.

As usual for us we arrived in town with no hotel reservations. And as we have done before we drove to the train station to get information about the city and about housing. There we met a shill for Hotel Columba.  His 'cousin' or some other relative owned it.  For some reason we decided to walk with him from the train station to the hotel to check it out. It was a nice walk through the city. We met the owner, looked at the room and decided to stay there.  We retrieved the car and took our stuff to the room.  We had a pleasant and enjoyable stay.

We then drove to the Michelangelo Piazzale to look over the city.  This was a good place to start. A good overview of Florence and lots of available information. While there Kay had to use the facilities. She found them but did not have the coins to use them. A nice lady took pity on her and gave her the coins!  We find people to be helpful and nice.

The parking area had parking space lines marked in different colors, I did ignore that since I had no idea that the colors meant anything.  A kind man told me if I parked between that color lines there would be a charge, but the other color was free.  I moved the car, of course, but that would come back to haunt me!

We then walked back to the hotel sight-seeing as we went.  I liked the hustle and bustle of Florence.  We saw more motor scooters/small motor cycles while there than I had  seen before in my entire life.  Not to mention a few cars.

During our stay we walked and walked and walked.  We visited the David and Ufizzi Art Museums. We spent hours wandering the streets maybe watching the people more than the sights.  Once we were walking along and a pretty girl, maybe 16 years old, kissed my left cheek as she walked by :).  Was this the highlight of our Italy trip?!?!  That was a first and only in my life.

When we were ready to leave Florence I walked back to the Michelangelo Piazzale to get our car, and it was GONE, vanished into thin air. I did not know what to do and we did not buy theft insurance.  I walked around searching for the car to no avail. Then I remembered!! I had moved the car to another area to get free parking.  It was a great relief to find it. I drove back to the hotel, picked up Kay, we loaded the car and were ready for a new adventure.

It is very hard to judge, but perhaps the time in Florence was Richard's favorite in Italy.  Was it the kiss? :)  And we enjoyed every place and every day we were in Italy.

Now off to Pisa.