It was time for us to move along, as we have to catch the train to Florence. Just as we reached the bus stop, there were a group of women there, some of them with a baby in their hand. All of them were having some cardboard or carton in their hands and they surrounded us. Initially, we thought them to be beggars but before we could realise what is happening, each one of pulled our bags, leather jackets etc. At one point of time, I heard Ganesan shouting, "I'll call the Police!".  Apparently, one of the lady goons managed to open his hip pouch and luckily he realised that before the situation went out of his hand. Since most of us were fully covered with the leather jackets, it was mission de failure for them and they went behind another group of tourists. After they had gone, the people at the bus stop asked us to be very careful and asked us to check our belongings especially, the wallet and other valuables.

This incident gave me a very sick opinion about Italy. Though it is not uncommon to spot pickpockets and thieves in India, things wouldn't be as apparent like this and I didn't expect the people here to mind their own business as if nothing has happened. Perhaps, incidents like these are very common for the locals. What kind of society that is! We were told that their idea is to forcibly thrust the babies in our hand and before we get relieved of the shock, they would relieve us of the valuables from us. Several days after the tour, it sends me jitters down the spine whenever I see any lady walking with a kid, although I have never seen or heard this happen in England too.

We proceeded to Florence by train. The journey took a little more than 90 minutes. The train passed through the semi-urban towns of Italy and it wasn't any different from India. Series of houses, clothes drying out in the terrace or from the balconies, a tampered car, Telephone/Electrical wiring running haphazardly over the streets, lots of two wheeler riders etc. made it resemble closely to India. Though we badly wanted to have a small nap, incidents earlier in the afternoon kept our eyes wide open.

We arrived at Florence (Firenze in Italia) at around 1600 hours and we tried to locate the place of the hostel, which we have already booked. Thanks to the policeman, who directed us exactly in the opposite direction of where we were supposed to go, we roamed the streets of Florence for about an hour and a couple of minutes before locating the hostel. 95% of the Italians do not understand English. They had very funny pronunciation for some common words. For example, they pronounce the vowel 'u' in 'Bus' in a way one would pronounce 'u' in 'put'.

Wherever we go, we are sure to find an Indian restaurant at that place. Florence had one too by name 'Ashoka Restaurant'. A happy dinner there cost us 1,85,000 Italian Liras. The denomination sounded very funny but a quick conversion would tell you that it is none too costly. After the usual exchange of views at the dorm to preserve the dormitory culture, we retired to bed with the satisfaction of seeing one of the 7 wonders of the world.

25^th December 2000

It was Christmas day and we had already gathered information that there would be some walking tour at a particular landmark. It so happens that when ever, we go on tour to some place, rain gods would follow us. Perhaps, we should try that logic in Chennai. It was drizzling when we started. Florence is a little, old, ugly town but it is considered to be one of the important tourist centres in Italy after Rome and Venice. The streets were very narrow and it was hard to believe that they manage to run buses in such narrow streets. They resembled very old towns in India but for the fact Florence was even dirtier.

We proceeded towards a point called 'Ponte Vecchio' only to know that there is no walking tour or whatsoever. By the time we reached that place, it started raining heavily which saw the umbrella vendors mushroom all over the place. 'Ponte Vecchio' is the oldest of the bridges across the river Arno, which bisects Florence. Once upon a time, the bridge was very wide but now shops have come up on the bridge that it is too narrow. Convention has it that only goldsmith's workshops are allowed on the bridge and it is famous for the same. As it happened to be the Christmas day, all the shops were closed.

Since there were no tours, we decided that we tour the place ourselves with the help of the handy map, we had in our possession. Yards away from 'Ponte Vecchio' stands 'Palazzo Uffizi'. Today it houses the 'Galleria Uffizi' (Uffizi for short!), the world famous art collection. Gradually it became the most important art collection in Italy and one of the greatest in the world, with some 4000 pictures. Seems that the gallery has also in its store many valuable sculptures, jewellery, weapons and many archaeological finds.

Adjoining the 'Uffizi' is an open hall designed for addressing people. The hall had many sculptures, which seldom impressed us but probably they should have some art value in that since lot of people were looking at it awe-struck. Ramaprasad tried to cover those sculptures in his Camcorder but a cop prevented him from doing so. We didn't fail to notice one another guy with a much bigger video camera happily filming the same right under the cop's nose.

In the same square (Piazza della Signoria is the name of the square where this open hall & other buildings are located.) is Palazzo Vecchio (meaning, the Old Palace), a castle like building that has a 310 feet high tower. It was raining cats and dogs while we were standing in the square and filming 'Palazzo Vecchio'. We initially thought it to be a church but later on we learnt that it is now a museum. Surprisingly, we found it open and entered it. The courtyard inside the building was fantastic and the modern day inscriptions told that there were much more inside. Anyhow, it was closed on account of the holiday and we had to return after taking a couple of snaps.

From the Piazza della Signoria, the supposedly busy street (called 'the street of hosiers') runs to the Piazza del Duomo, the prime attraction of Florence. Right at Piazza del Duomo stood the Baptistery, which is an octagonal building with an exceptionally large dome. The Baptistery was simply too huge and the exterior of the same was encased in white and green marble. It is said that this Baptistery became the prototype for numerous Romanesque religious buildings. By the time we visited the place, the Baptistery too was closed. If it had been open, it would have been possible to climb to the top of the dome. Moreover, it became increasingly difficult even to move around because of the heavy rain.

Florence is full of high rise, old buildings, which on the very sight tell a lot about their age. Most of them were either museums or cathedrals. Since we travelled exactly on the wrong day of the year and also due to the heavy rain, most of us started losing interest in Florence. But, it is a fact that people who told about Florence before we made the travel have hyped a lot. After lots of walking, we moved in to McDonalds for lunch. Suddenly, some of us struck up with an idea of visiting Venice during this tour. We spent a lot of time at Florence Railway Station discussing the pros and cons of such a venture only to abandon the plan. Since the rains were still too heavy and it was already getting dark, we returned to our barracks.

Meet you all in Rome next week....