A Day in Florence June 7 2011

I was awake early this morning for a rest day however I was looking forward to Skpye-ing my son. Kurt gets up very early for work and so our schedules are totally opposite. I could stay up quite late and trust he comes straight home or get up very early. I opted for the get up early option. It worked and I was able to get a good connection as there was no one else on the local server. It was really good to see him and chat about stuff.

It was still early so I got my running gear all on and was all set to go then as I was filling my water battle it started to rain. No let me correct that it started to pour. Ok Plan B – go back to bed and catch an additional 3 hours of sleep. By 9:30 I was tired of the bed and got up and pulled on my rain pants and jacket.

It is a 15 minute walk to downtown from where we are camped and some where along the way it stopped raining. Off came the rain pants. The jacket I have with me is really a cycling jacket and it is not really water proof. As I am waking though the downtown there is a little hunting outfitter/hardware store which has rain suits hanging in the door way. They only had three suits however one was just my size and at 14 Euros it was a deal. This is one of those really water proof rubber set ups with matching pants. I am hoping that this will chase the rain away for good.

I wandered around the city looking in shops and marvelling at the beautiful cathedrals. There are marble statues in every plaza and in every niche. There were hundreds tour groups being lead though the downtown so it was very crowded. By 1:30 I was tired of walking around so I picked up a sandwich and an orange juice from a market. My meal was completed with a basket of strawberries from a local farmers market. They were really sweet.

As it was now close to 2:00 pm the shops were closing up for the afternoon. So I headed back to the campground. The sun was peaking though the heavy over cast and I thought I might be able to dry things out a bit.

So it was a great day in Florence. I saw the city. I found a bullet proof rain suit which will end the rain on this trip. I got some additional Euros from a ATM as I was almost out of money. And most importantly I found a very pretty earring and pendant set for Agnes.

Well the rain suit didn’t work after a brief sunny break the sky opened up and it just poured. The rain caused a huge flood of mud which washed under the front flap of my tent. I even had dug a drainage trench around my tent. What a mess.

Terry