Florence

We left Venice early in the morning and headed southwest to Florence. Along the way, we passed through the city of Bologna, namesake of the famous luncheon meat (totally made that up). But there was nothing special there, so we just had a quick look around and then left.

Florence wasn't exactly breathtaking, but it definitely had it's charm. We drove around for about an hour looking for parking, because apparently the whole country is against giving tourists a free place to park.

We started walking around and found the main river winding through the town (it's funny how all these cities are built around rivers). The water here definitely wasn't as clean or pretty as it was in France, but it was still a nice view.

The city had bunches and bunches of monuments, statues, and old buildings. You could quickly get lost in it's winding, narrow streets. I walked around town with a kebab and a Heineken (I still get a kick out of walking around town with a beer). We didn't really do anything interesting there, just took pictures (so look at those if you want a better impression of Florence).

For dinner, we splurged on a decent Italian restaurant. I ordered two courses- lasagna, and their roast chicken and veggies. The lasagna was AMAZING. So creamy, so saucy, and served in a personal-sized stoneware pan. The chicken and veggies were also very good. Still hate Italian bread though.

That night we started driving towards Pisa. We got about halfway there and decided to try to find a nice place to sleep for the night. We ended up in a restaurant parking lot in the middle of nowhere, and Rachelle went in to ask for a hotel recommendation. The lady told us that there was a B&B a few miles down the road that was super cheap- like 30euros for all three of us.

So we finally find this B&B, and see that the logo on their sign is a picture of a ROACH. That, accompanied by a very creepy couple peering down at us from the third floor, gave us a pretty uneasy feeling about staying there.

But we walked up to the door anyways. We were welcomed by an extremely kind middle-aged Italian woman, her giant Great Dane, and the most delicious smelling cookies you can imagine. And the house was immaculate (maybe she just has a soft spot for roaches?).

But we quickly learned that the price estimate given to us earlier (by the not-so-trustworthy restaurant hostess) was not correct by any means. It was actually triple that price. So with many apologies, we had to turn down the nice lady (and her cookies) and head for greener/cheaper pastures.

So we finally came across an industrial park, and considering that this would prolly be the LAST place to get robbed/raped, we made camp underneath a giant sign for "Anaconda Plumbing" or something. Again...worst night of sleep imaginable. We actually had to move during the night to a nearby gas station because a semi-truck pulled up behind us and wouldn't leave.