Tuesday 13th September- A bus ride in to town

There is a bus service running from near the camp site in to Florence Station and so we boarded the bus which was already running twenty minutes late. This put me in mind of a story from a good Italian friend who said that TIME in Italy does not really mean time but means an indication only of time. So actually the bus was not really late.

The bus journey is posted as forty minutes duration but the winding through the hills and villages and stopping every so often to pick up and drop off passenger, our driver who also happened to be Alonso’s brother, or so he thought by the way he drove the bus, eventually dropped us off at the Station one hour and ten minutes later.

We followed the signs to the pedestrian area where many of the beautiful old buildings are located as well as the many statue’s that adorn this town. A close friend of Jennifer had mentioned that Florence was a much nicer town than Rome and she is correct. Although Rome has the historic ruins and also many other beautiful buildings Florence as a town is much nicer and well worth another visit.

We toured the streets and boy was it hot and the ice cream had to be eaten very quickly to avoid turning in to liquid. The town was full of tourist’s and tours with lots of Asians being led around by tour guides waving banners and all of them looking pretty dog tired.

We finally found a book shop where we could purchase a decent map of Italy and also one for our intended visit to Switerland and this will make our travelling a little easier .

By about 4.30 pm we were both hot and tired and decided to catch the 17.05 or thereabouts bus home. This time it left on time but it would helpful if the put the destination on the bus and it was only on the basis that we recognised some of the passengers who arrived from our small town that gave us some degree of confidence that perhaps we were heading in the right direction.

We arrived back at the campsite and headed straight for the extremely nice swimming pool for a cooling off swim before changing for dinner as we had decided to try the food again as it was really good the previous evening.