Florence & Venice

We left Rome on Saturday via the train and once again it was an minor ordeal - my mother and I went through the same thing - figuring out which is your train, what track, what car, what seat. After about a half an hour of wandering around, I finally figured out how to read the board. Karen and I had a coffee and danish and waited for the train to arrive. We were standing at the platform just looking around lost and what not, trying to now figure out which train car we were supposed to get on when some man (probably a gypsie) rescued us. He looked at our tickets, grabbed ALL of our luggage, walked us to the right car, put us in our seats, and loaded our luggage. 10 euros.

We made it to Florence without anymore fuss, arrived at the Westin Excelsior Florence, had lunch and embarked on another walking journey. We were sidetracked from seeing more sights as we stumbled upon a wonderful shop that sold reversable suede & leather coats. Davide Cevasi himself worked with us for over an hour and Karen bought 2 jackets. I think I'm going back for the white jacket. I had to think about it for a minute - white and all.

We took a tour of Ponte Vecchio -the oldest bridge in Florence filled with fine jewelry shops when it started to rain. Karen and I took refuge in the Piazza della Signoria and had some dinner. Karen and I make our way back to the hotel, stopping for a gellati and got some shut eye as we had to get up early for our day trip to Venice.

Today we had a Private Tour of Venice and our driver met us at 7am to take us to Venice to meet our guide. This is definitly the way to travel. Our driver, Marzio is not only a personal driver but also a body guard. (And handsome as hell). We had a leisurely day in Venice. We met our guide in San Marco Square and after a short tour of the square, I insisted she take us to see a Murano Glass demonstration. We spent about 2 hours touring the palace and Karen bought a beautiful statue and I bought some wearable art. Roberto, our salesman, directs us to a restaurant and orders everything for us - which was delicious by the way - especially the chocolate delight he ordered and the spumante. We spent some time just walking around looking in the shops and then decide to take a gondola ride.

We took a water taxi back to meet our driver and arrived back in Florence around 9:00pm. Tomorrow we go to the Galleria Dell'a Accademia to see David and then back to Rome.