Cremorna to Florence July 14.


Cremorna also has a fresh food market in the middle of town – but not as good as the one the previous day in Irvea. But the cathedral was beautiful. I unwittingly walked in wearing a singlet top – I could not understand why I was getting the dirty looks. It was only later that I learned that women were supposed to have their shoulders covered.

Cremorna was also the home of Stratavarios – so miniature violins were the favourite of the souvenir shops. But we did not linger too long as Florence was our destination - no matter what.

Florence! – After spending all our time since Hong Kong in rural areas, what a shock. Hot, crowded and smelly! It was impossible to drive around, so Brian parked the Renault illegally on the side of the street in central Florence and Rebecca and I set off to look for accommodation. The street we parked in had about 20 dodgy looking hotels - surely be would have a vacancy and be OK. The first thing we noticed was that most of them had their reception areas up narrow dark stairs, or you would have to ring bell on the door at street level to get into reception. After numerous complete full signs, and several very dodgy overpriced rooms we found a great place near the Duormo. A large room that slept all of us, with a clean bathroom. ( we were getting used to the 4 bed room by now)

The centre of Florance was absolutely packed with tourists of every nationality. The Lonely Planet guide warned against overpriced, poor quality restaurants near the city centre, so we walked and walked in search of a reasonably priced Tratorria. Eventually we found one!

It was still hot when we returned to our room, and the air conditioner was barely coping, but the noise from the street was so oloud you had to have the window and shutters closed. A hot and stuffy night!