Florence, Italy. Famous for many reasons - one of the biggest being Michaelangelo's legendary statue "David" as seen in the picture below. ... well actually this is a spoof picture from examiner.com representing what David would look like after time in America. The real David was amazing and unfortunately in a no-photo zone.

One of the neat things I learned from a fellow tourist was about the free audioguides. For those of you with iPods or mp3 players, you can download free audio guide files from Rick Steve's website or get podcasts. This turned out to be quite handy, economical, and we wished we had known about it in Rome. The guide for the Academia (where David is kept) added a lot of value to our visit.

Another great thing we did in Florence was a Vespa tour! We had a quick lesson in driving scooters in Italy and then hit the road. Michelle decided to ride with me instead of taking her own scooter - but it worked out well since she could take pictures while I drove. It included a drive around the Tuscany countryside as well as a visit to a winery!

This is some of the typical scenery from our trip. It was a gorgeous day and a lot of fun to drive. Fortunately, I'd already had some practice on Yoshi (a similar Honda Metro) - cheers Amy! Driving in Italy is a bit different though - lanes are merely guidelines.

Here are some wine casks in the cellar for the winery we visited. The whole process was described very well and we were able to sample two of their wines. They also produce olive oil and we learned about that (and sampled, of course) as well.

Florence was great and I'll finish with these two fine statues: Perseus slaying Medusa followed by Hercules and the Centaur. There was a lot of other stuff to do... and see... and buy in Florence. This is one of the areas I enjoyed the most and felt I'd only seen a glimpse of. The food was amazing on top of all that!

Here are few last pictures of Rome before I move on to our next stop!

Clearly, gelato is a big winner in Italy...

Another nice statue at the Campidoglio. The backlighting was too harsh to see the statues very well, but the profile is kinda neat too.

Below is a nice shot of the Tiber River on a sunny day. We spent a fair bit of time walking along the pleasant river side.

Us at the Trevi Fountain in Rome! Yes, Michelle and I went to Italy after our short stay in Madrid. We had a long day of travel getting to our economical guest house (just beyond the edge of Rome's historic center). We stayed at Welcome Rome - run by a Anna Maria and her son. It was a nice location on the 7th floor with a balcony (show below).

The hot weather in Rome made hard-core touring unpleasant, but we did explore the city quite a bit in the evenings. The pure quantity of old buildings, art, sculpture, and decorated cathedrals was overwhelming! I'm quite sure we could have stayed in Rome for many weeks without running out of things to see and places to visit. We'll have to go again some day (when it's a bit cooler).

This is one of my favorite sculptures from Rome. It was a just a side room of the Palazzo Nuovo at the Campidoglio. I don't know much of its true significance or history, but I like it a lot!

This is a night shot of the famous Arch of Constantine very close to the Colosseum. The grass turned out sorta weird, but it makes for a nice picture anyways.