Rome to Florence – Onwards

(Finally, some hotspot action. Upload Ahoy! Suffice to say there are heaps of photos - I reckon we're well in to the 2000, with four cameras between us - but I'll save them till later. It's text only for now...)

Today was about the train first up. Out of our apartment for a 1030 Eurostar bullet to Florence. Amazing. 90 minutes to do about Canberra to Sydney. Sooo cool. We staggered under the weight of ever increasing baggage (durn souvenirs) from the station to our new hotel, Alba. The outside looked kinda average, covered as are most things in Rome and it turns out Florence in a layer of car carbon – but the room is tops!! The kids are loving the mezzanine level, not least because for the first time this trip they’re not sharing a bed, Mik’s lovin’ the spa and the Wi-fi’s doing what you’re reading right now.

But we’re in Florence and there’s footslogging to do. We couldn’t check in right away, so we went for a feed – more pizza – then found an INCREDIBLE Galileo exhibition. The spin was the evolution of the study of the stars, so it covered the origins of recording of astrology and moved through renaissance astronomy. Why the use of capitals in the first sentence? Well, being Florence, when they need to whistle up a picture to illustrate something, they don’t just get any old photocopy. Not only was the exhibition in a 500 year old Palazzo, the walls were decorated by the likes of Botticelli, Brugel, Rubens – frescos from Pompeii, telescopes and astrolabes that had Galileo’s fingerprints on them – and even one of Galileo’s fingers . Yes, the real thing, removed from his corpse before he was buried. Capital stuff indeed.

Another break at the hotel then a turn around all the important bits, like the Varese Bridge, a Palazzo or six and once around the Duomo thank you very much. Somewhere in there we restauranted again – staying away from pizza this time, and now we’re back at the hotel, once again enjoying the conveniences. A bit more to do tomorrow – Indi’s dead keen on the Archeological museum – then it’s into another Eurostar for a couple of hours to Venice where we’ll meet up with Aunty Margaret and ensconce ourselves in another apartment for five nights, to weather out an Italian Easter. It’s a tough life.