Florence

Florence has been another fantastic city. Our hotel far surpassed all our
expectations (the showers worked this time and you actually came out cleaner
than when you went in). We also really enjoyed our free breakfast, especially
the hot chocolate. Our night tour of Florence made us realise that we were in
yet another beautiful city. Particularly impressive highlights were
Brunelleschi's dome "Il Duomo" and the busker outside the Uffizi Gallery. Mr
Buckingham raced us up a hill (a race we disappointingly lost) where we got an
amazing view of Florence, and again Il Duomo stood out completely.

During the day we saw the Uffizi gallery, which turned out to be worth the
two-hour queue. The artwork was amazing, particularly that of Caravaggio and
Michelangelo. We also saw the inside of Il Duomo. Unfortunately we didn't get to
go up it, but the painting on the inside of the dome was outstanding. Our
excursion to Pisa brought out the immaturity in all of us as we did various
poses next to the leaning tower, and also enjoyed the company of our very good
friends the Moroccans.

The leather markets lived up to their reputation; there was really good quality
stuff that was relatively cheap. It seemed to stretch on for miles so we didn't
get to visit all the stores but everybody seemed happy with their purchases.
Many boys finally did their laundry too, and Lloyd washed his socks much to the
pleasure of everyone on the tour.

Overall Florence was incredible, the only flaw being the fact that we had to pay
to see churches. Now we are en route to Venice and then to Beaucaire for the
relaxing leg of the tour.

— Kenrick Rosser and Josh Lloyd