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!