Florence, Italy

Florence.
Time to pack up and leave our lodgings in Cavriglia for Florence, but not before another visit to our new favourite butcher in Greve.
On the way to said slaughter house we bypassed to the tiny hamlet of Volpaia, an 11th century fortress town high in the hills of Chianti.
Lovely town, but our bovine shop awaits
As I navigated our journey through the winding roads of the Chianti, my brand new mirrored sunglasses just snapped at the bottom of the rim. Devastated, cannot believe a €30 pair of sunglasses only lasted a week. Obviously too aggressive on the corners with my driving. Time for a decent pair, as these cheap sunnies are starting to add up!!
I digress, our old friend Cleve recommended checking put the dried pigs penis riding stock at the butchers, who could resist? But sadly we could not find one!

Seriously, this shop is so great it was sad to have to head off to Florence, but head off we did, sans GPS.
Eventually we had to set the GPS or we would have headed towards Venice, but once set, things went pear shaped. Too many one way streets, too many roadworks, TOO many mistakes!!!
You look at the map and think you are staying on a main road, but discover you are actually on a one way cobblestone lane!
We found our lodgings, more by fluke than good management, dropped our bags and headed off to return our hire car, which looked to be about 10 minutes away…..40 mins later, dropped off car….and 20mins walk later, back at our apartment!?
We took the longest route around town conceivable.
What the? Exasperating!
The apartment we have booked is great, a small studio only minutes from the historic town and all the main attractions, up a hill near the Michelangelo gardens, and for once….on the ground floor!
Time to explore our new town, so off to the Ponte Vecchio, which is only a couple of minutes down the hill, and into the old town….along with about 20,000 of our intrepid friends.
Pretty busy, lots of tourists, plenty of tour groups just waiting to swallow you up.
The Ponte Vecchio is a Medieval stone closed-spandrel segmental arch bridge over the Arno River, noted for still having shops built along it, as was once common. Mostly jewellery shops of varying quality.
Pretty cool place, even with the crowds.

We just wandered around for a couple of hours, getting our bearings, enjoying the sights, sounds, and smells of Florence before hitting the town hard tomorrow.

For tomorrow we are doing something a bit different, taking a foodies tour of Florence.
So to prepare we had dinner, a few wines, and wandered some more in the evening light.
Looking forward to ‘David’, food and wine, and a different perspective on this lovely town.