Wake up at 6.15am and on the bus at 7.45am after a good sleep of course- still having NO problems laying down and being asleep in 10mins!!
We drove for 4 hours today and stopped at the American War Cemetery where 4000 americans are buried. It is Memorial day here so all the headstones had an American and an Italian flag on them. This is such a beautiful cemetery, gently sloping uphill laid out in front of you. It was very moving and there were americans on the tour all coming back blowing their noses. Our turn on Saturday with Montecassino and the Commonwealth cemetery - there are hundreds of the Maori battalion buried there also.
We have brought along a recording of Kiri Te Kanawa/ Maori Mens choir version of
Pou Karekare ana, so might play that there if it feels right as it will have been along time since these NZérs have heard a song from home....
Anyhow, we continued on to Florence and guess what? We are cured of our post traumatic stress disorder form when we accidently drove in there at rush hour traffic time!! Easy as, in the bus. Stopped at a look out and had our tour group photo taken and took some pics of the city and the synagogue with its green dome, then back on the bus and into a small square. Here we had a gold and leather making demo then were set free with all the other tourists!
Its funny these cities we are visitng are like the old days where trade was strong in each city in a particular field. Venices was the hand blown glass and lace and Firenze is leather and gold work. We seem to have lost that over time and now modern cities seem to do it all but mostly machine made.
Graeme has been very keen to buy me a ring for my birthday and we found a simple dark ruby here with 2 diamonds that I loved. They made it quite a few sizes bigger for me in a couple of hours, so it was ready for picking up later.
We went on a walking tour with a local guide in the meantime and keep being told to really watch our valuables- will be happy when we get back to NZ and not worry about this! as you are constantly aware of people being close to you.
Came back and went to a local restaurant for dinner which was lovely, then out to the bus and on to the hotel.On the way danni teased me that I had stood in some doggie doo which is everywhere- I hadnt but chased her with my shoe- see the pic!
Found upon arrival at our hotel that we had a room with 2 king singles, split by a small single in between them - so we couldnt even walk in between. Graeme was down to the lobby pretty quick as he is getting frustrated with the rooms we keep getting. None have been large but this was ridiculous and we have paid 90% of the adult price for Danni on the tour! Luckily, he found an "error had been made"and we were changed to a room with 2 doubles- phew!
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