We arrived in Florence at 8.30 pm and caught a cab to our Airbnb apartment in the suburbs. We had told the apartment owner that we would be there at 10 but arrived early being dropped in a quiet tree lined street with locked gates preventing us from going further. None of the names next to the buzzers matched our contact name and we were beginning to worry as our phone wasn't working, imagining snoozing on the pavement until morning - but luckily the owner finally pitched up and we were away. The street, the apartment and view below.

We walked into the center of town the next day, heading first for the Ponte Vecchio, the iconic ancient bridge over the Arno River. The bridge is mainly lined with jewellery stores and was always crowded while we were there. We passed some cool dudes as we walked over it. 

We saw many small cars throughout Florence, some plugged in and charging. The yellow vehicle is the local postman's ride.

We spent the next three days exploring the city, walking the narrow streets already crowded with tourists, mostly Americans, many taking photos, some brandishing the ubiquitous selfie - sticks. We walked up to the Piazza della Signoria and through to the Piazza del Duomo.

We climbed the cathedral dome seeing the red topped houses sweeping away to the low hills in the distance, and were impressed with the interior of the di Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral. The golden doors of the Battistero di San Giovani gleamed in the afternoon light.

We observed tourists and locals, artists and lovers, Vespas, musicians, cyclists, Gelati shops, neat little buses and good looking garbage girls. We even found some colourful veldskoens.

Smokebreak Michael Palin masquerading as a fiorentino (a native of Florence) cop J

The next day we walked back early to try and beat the queues to see Michelangelo’s David in the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze. By the time we got there people were already crowding the street outside the Accademia – we should have bought a Firenze card to get in quicker (it enables you to jump the queues). The statue is magnificently sculpted in the way the muscles, sinews and veins were defined using a hammer and chisel. Seeing the statue reminded me of when Dr Eric Woods, father of good friend Steve, on seeing an imperfection on David's stomach back in the 60s/70s declared to the Italians that the model must have had a hernia. This caused a lot of interest in Italy with Eric even making the papers. There is also a musical museum in the building where we discovered a Stradivaris violin and two hurdy - gurdies (I've always wondered what Donovan was singing about)

We observed art students, some more interested than others, having a go at drawing him - she was one of the best, although reluctant to get too detailed in public😉

We discovered Leonardo da Vinci's museum in a side street. It is fascinating. As you may or may not know, he came up with the idea for the underwater diving suite, the parachute, the tank (seen below top left), a clock, and fountain pen amongst many others, Apparently Leonardo's favourite area of study was aviation. One of his most famous inventions, the flying machine (also known as the ornithopter) is inspired by the flight of bats, birds and dragon flies. His drawings of the human body are so accurate that medical students can use them today.

Jennifer dropped her camera on concrete back in Namibia and this came back to haunt her briefly as her camera went on the blink on the first day here. After cabbing around town we luckily found a Nikon repair shop where it was kindly fixed for free.

On the last evening we watched the sun setting over the city from the Piazzale Michelangelo.

The next morning we cabbed it to the local bus station to catch a bus to Siena.