Florence again, a train ride to Pisa and our last night in Italy.

We were both awake early this morning.... yes even me!!!! and after another continental breakfast.... I definitely won’t be sorry to see the back of those, loaded up the car for the last time, programmed Sally for Florence where we are dropping off the car and set off with joy in our hearts. The weather was kind.... we have been so lucky during our month here in Italy, the majority of our time it has been hot and sunny.....the roads were clear and we made good time on the way to Florence..... not good enough as it turned out though....

We arrived at the car rental

office.... the very same humourless guy who served me four weeks ago was the only person available at the counter.... and time had definately not improved his sense of humour or his lack of customer care skills, he was as grumpy as ever and seemed to take particular pleasure in telling me that because we were an hour late returning the car we would have to pay for another day!!!!! I tried to argue my way out of it but the little bastard.... yes he was short.... just saying!!! ..... was having none of it!!!! And so my alcohol allowance for the next two weeks was grudgingly passed over the counter to the pony tailed shit ass, who took it without turning a hair of his greasy barnet! Feeling decidedly pissed off....and now wondering if we could afford it, we went in search of a taxi to the train station.

We trundled our cases across the car park and luckily there was a taxi waiting....... although we weren’t sure at this stage if we could afford it!!! ..... we jumped in and set off through the traffic to the station......

the station, when we finally arrived was heaving, the information board showed that there was a train to Pisa leaving in half an hour...... plenty of time to buy tickets, find the platform and get on the train, or so one would think...... I started queueing ...... there were two groups in front of me..... both of them clearly had

requests which were off piste and so took flipping ages to get sorted, by the time my turn came around fifteen minutes had gone by..... and then it turned out....... yes you’ve guessed it........I was in the wrong bloody queue...... so now we had to look for a ticket machine which didn’t have its own line of people taking ages to buy their tickets...... oh and as usual we both needed a wee and the trip to Pisa was about an hour and a half so no hope of hanging on .......we purchased tickets just as it was announced that the train would leave in ten minutes..... luckily the loo was on the way to the platform so I darted in and left Dear Richard waiting with the bags...... wee done I took over bag watch and he went in,only to reappear three seconds later with a face like thunder..... in all the rush I had forgotten to give him the euro required for entry to the gents!!! The attendant was a particularly unpleasant jobsworth who had demanded the cash in a way that was guaranteed to upset any man desperate to relieve himself...... euro found, he went off again and this time he looked a lot happier when he came out. We got on the train with about a minute to spare, found a seat ( it was crowded ) breathed a sigh of relief and settled down for the trip. It didn’t take us long to realise that there appeared to be a significant number of passengers in our carriage with mental or alcohol issues, some of them definitely had a combination of the two...... as the journey progressed we were treated to singing, shouting, one bloke talking loudly and having an argument with himself and another who tried for about ten minutes to get into the toilet but couldn’t make the doors work!!!!As one got off another got on..... when we reached Pisa we understood a little of the reason for this one way traffic..... in no other city in Italy have we seen as many down and outs.....

So we arrived at Pisa and once again dragged our cases and other assorted bags through the streets to our accommodation for the night. After our tiring day it was a relief to find that we had chosen somewhere nice, in fact our room in the eaves was beautiful.......just one thing ..... yes of course..... the clue was in the location of the room....... no lift ...... just about three floors worth of stairs!!!

We dumped our bags, had a quick refresh and set about finding the famous tower..... I had a vague recollection of its location which proved to be accurate , after about fifteen minutes we turned a corner ..... and there it was.

The sun was low in the sky and so the tower was bathed in golden light, I have always been a trifle underwhelmed by the leaning tower but I must say in this light it looked very impressive.

We had a wander around the tower area then decided to find somewhere for a drink........well it’s been a long trying day and I needed something to ease the trauma of the train journey...... As we walked through the town we came across a series of amazing sculptures, there were lots of people sitting in the cafes having early evening drinks......we found a table with a view of passing pedestrians and sat down, when our drinks arrived they came with some very substantial nibbles which we enjoyed whilst people watching.......

oh we saw some sights......and no sign of the fashion police...... believe me there were a few people in dire need of their advice!!...there are a lot of Japanese tourists here, but so far no hats!!!

Feeling stuffed after the nibbles there was no way we could manage dinner so we nipped back to our room for a shower before going out again on a hunt for food. Not that hunting was necessary as there are so many places to eat I’m surprised that obesity is not a greater problem here!! We decided ....... on our last night in Italy..... we’ve been here a month and this is the first time we’ve done it..... to have pizza......dear lord when it arrived it was ENORMOUS!!!!! We ate it all, .....Dear Richard of course having most of it as I was full

after one bit but bravely continued to help him out......

We rolled back to our hotel stuffed to the gills, climbed the stairs very slowly and fell into bed.

I fell asleep listening to Dear Richard grumbling about how full he was and how he was never going to eat like that again......a bit like me when I say I am never going to drink again..... yeah right !!!!!