First day in Firenze

We had booked our train ticket to Florence a few days before and our 3 day transport ticket just lasted to get us and our bags (which are getting heavier by the day) to the train station. We found our place on the train and it was a very pleasant 3 hours to Florence.

Once we arrived we followed a combination of internet instructions and the map to find our way to the "B&B". We have discovered that B&B in Italy is not the same as you would expect. This isn't a cosy room in someone's house, it's just a room in a building that someone visits each day to co-ordinate breakfast. The one in Florence was the same and we lugged all our bags up 3 flights of stairs to our room. The room was bigger than in Venice and clean and tidy but had zero appeal to it.

We decided to head out to the Tourist Information office to get some info on day tours etc. Now, it could be just me but I thought at Tourist Information was to actually help tourists during their stay. Not in Italy it seems. You go in and there are NO brochures out. You have to go and ask someone for them. Why? You think they people would get bored of people going in and saying "Can I have some information please?". Even when you get the brochures, they can't book anything for you. Oh no, you have to go to a travel agency (even when we went they only book for certain companies) or call direct. They also don't do hotel reservations. Great.

On our way to a certain Tourist Information place we spotted at the station before, Jo was reading a brochure and a man carrying rusty old metal poles on his shoulder slammed into Jo's arm taking a nice chunk out of it. I rushed her to the Chemist on the corner and the nice man there cleaned it up and put some plasters on it. He said she might need a tetnus injection as the poles were rusty. We went into another chemist and saw a sign for an English doctor just around the corner. Now, I have to say I was very disappointed as it was 5.04 and he closed at 5pm and he just did not want to help us - "I'm just on my way out" so we had to go wait for 3hours in the ER of the hospital!! The doctor there was really nice and made sure Jo's arm was ok before giving her an injection and a script for anti-biotics.

When we got back to the "B&B" we had our first piece of luck which was to get the last two spots on a day trip to the Chianti region for the next day. Thank god for that.