European Highlights - FLORENCE!

I know. I know. I've been slacking off in getting these posts up about my european travels. Oh god, lets see if I remember what happened on this day... 

It was time to say bye to the South of France and cross into the Italian territory. First off, I just want to say, ordering food at a service station is a pain in the butt side. The convenience is just not there in this country. I know the Italians like to have their own way but when you come from a very convenient country where simplicity is there and then you enter Italy...its a lot different. We got to experience this inconvenience at our first service stop just past the border. If you would like food from the deli, first you have to go pay for it and then go back and get the food. It got quite annoying. Especially with a huge queue. 

Anyway

On the journey down to Florence, we made a stop at Pisa and took the tourist photo of all time... 

Hold up...that doesn't look right, does it? 

Ahh..thats better. Look at me all macho holding up a cement building. 

I really did not want to do the typical tourist photo..cause well..its boring you have to admit. Everyone does it. So original. Alas we did not have enough time. 

Legend says the Leaning Tower of Pisa originally built as a bell tower, started to diffuse downward after building the third floor of the tower. The clay mixture was not strong enough to hold the tower so the development of the building was halted for a 100 years. 100 years pass and the building was added another floor to the top of it. Soon the building was developed and the tower kept leaning over and over. 

You might be questioning, how is the building still upright after all those years? Wont the building eventually collapse? 
I was asking the exact same questions to my tour manager and he says that the tower got installed a leaden counterweight to the side of the building weighing 800 tonnes. Impressive huh? 



Finally we made it to our accommodation, Camping Internazionale. Quick change and back on the bus we go. I almost missed the bus. Oops. I felt so bad! Made a quick stop overlooking the beautiful city of Florence and had a good look at the duplicate statue of David. The real one is in a museum. 

By this time we were all starving and I was pumped for our dinner. A 7 course Tuscan dinner meal. Thats right! 7! I was prepared and wore a dress. I did not want any constriction going on in my stomach region. 

 Ready for our meal 

 Wine of the night

The restaurant was very colourful and had a lot of nudity paintings

First Course

Second Course

 Third Course

 Fourth Course

 Fifth Course plus a salad

 Sixth Course

 Seventh Course

And to top it off, shots all round! Had two :) 

Tonight was just a chilled night. Next morning we got dropped off in the city and went and watched a leather demonstration. I was trying so hard not to fall asleep. Not my cup of tea. And of course I had to find the nearest gelato store. I had caramel flavoured ice cream. One of my friends had coffee flavoured and it tasted so good. I should have got that one instead. 

We had a local tour guide showing us around the city and explaining about the history of some monuments. 

Did you know? 
The statues you see on the left are carved from one piece of marble. That's really impressive considering there are so many fine point details

And here is a gypsy trying to get money off another gypsy

Another destination done and on to the next stop: Rome 
Feeling pumped!