Day 9: Thursday 10th July
Graham was up bright and early and feeling so much better for having a rest day yesterday. After a leisurely morning and another home cooked lunch, we headed off for Florence about 2.15pm. All went well until we tried to get on to the motorway, took a wrong turning and needed to turn round. This wouldn’t normally have been a problem, but unfortunately Graham had failed to notice that there was a three foot ditch at the side of the road, until that was, we had one of the front wheels over the edge. Then the car stalled –luckily for us, the car managed to pull itself out. It was what I would call a ‘heart stopping’ moment, similar to being pelted with hail stones, when you imagine having to explain yourself to a foreign insurance company how it happened… Off on our way again, all was fine until we tried to get to the centre of Florence. After half an hour of going round the same one way streets, we decided to give up and park and walk the extra half a mile, with all the road works, even with Boris’ help, we didn’t stand a chance.
I had hoped to go and visit the shoe museum, but by the time we had walked in, it was getting late and instead we headed for the Pitti Palace with its Boboli Gardens, which we’d not seem before. We decided to pay and go in, but managed to choose all the wrong options as the exhibits we saw weren’t exactly awe inspiring. We did however have access to the Gardens, which were enormous, but for the most part up a steep hill which in the heat (warmest day so far at 34 degrees) was a bit of a struggle! But it was worth it for the view we achieved over half of Florence…magnificent. Half past six was chucking out time, so we wending a tortuous way out of the gardens and the main building and walked back towards Ponte Vecchio. As it was early evening the numbers of visitors was subsiding and this gave the illegal traders a chance to put their counterfeit handbags and prints down on the ground. You can’t blame then trying to catch the passing trade, but in Italy and I think France, if you’re caught having bought some of these goods, the police will impound them and destroy the items. As we sauntered over the bridge, there was a loud kerfuffle behind us – I thought someone had been mugged or worse, but the Polizia had turned up unexpectedly and the noise and jostling was the traders grabbing their wares and running up the street. So there we were, hearts thumping and a Polizia on his motorbike in the middle of the bridge having serious words with a teenage girl. We think he must have seen her about to or buying a handbag. Anyway, it soon calmed down again and my lasting image is of a member of the public trying to hand over one of the bags to the Polizia and him having eventually to accept it and ride off with the offending item dangling from his handlebars…
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