Nice to Florence

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16th December 2006 nice-florence up at 7am this morning, getting used to the fact that you get 30mins for breakie and to be on the coach with all your goodies, otherwise it will leave without you it was spitting down with rain, and we had to navigate the slippery tiled park, and there were many casualties...it's wrong to laugh at others misfortunes... but there was this one partiular girl who was the snobbiest ever... and she took a dive of all dives and ended up being hit on the head with her heavy suitcase! it made it so much easier to laugh...

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first stop was at the french perfumery, where we were lead though the factory section, and onto theshop...got to test out about 10 different types, which after smelling 3 they all began to smell the same.. but actually smelt good all together!

they allocated about 90mins here.... which was way to much time... that and it was raining, so in order not to end up drowned you had to with stand the lovely over-powering smell inside the shop!..from there we continued along the coastal roads, which were really high up and the roads so weren't made for huge coaches with a limited turning circle... after a few near misses we made it to Italy...and a crash course in the basics of italian... before stopping at an auto grill that served pizza...

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weird ordering system here, first you choose what you want, then go back to the counter and order, then you take the ticket to the other side of the place, and they'll cook you what you want then, you go to another place to get your drink..

lol try talking in basic hello goodbye and pointing... hahahah we all ended up with some weird things... pointing... never gets you what you want... the pizza slices were massive... i'm talking as in one slice was about half a pizza!

from there it was a 2.5 hr drive to Pisa, the home to what else but the leaning tower! the town itself was such a dump, with rubish piled up everywhere, and grafitti covering everything.got to take a lovely 1km walk though the town (or should i say wade though the piled rubbish) to get to the leaning tower which was definitely leaning..

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lots of people selling fake designer bags etc... on the classic white table cloth, which could be quickly raped up and hid when a police car happened to come cruising by...

it was funny watching others pose for their token photos pushing or holding the tower... have to say chinese are the best.... first time i've seen a deadpan face while trying to push a tower..

only a quick stop here... before heading back..got to laugh at the people seeling fake watches, as soon as the bus got there they were already surrounding the bus.. and same when they saw us coming bag... it was like a swarm coming in to attack!

hahaha got to florence and you should see our hotel... it looks dodgey....the lifts could fit one person in them, without suitcases/packs...lol and so many people got stuck... hahahaha i was glad to have gone the pack, and took the stairs!...

off to dinner, the famous tuscan dinner, met up with another, somewhat less rowdy contiki group... and it was game on as to which group could be the loudest.... i think ours won hands down.... free alcohol helped too..they had the worst dinner entertainment... there was this opera singer that couldn't sing in tune... that's we'd been warned about and told not to laugh... and an accordian player that took great delight in playing the chicken dance overand over again!

from there we headed to the space disco... an interesting place...anywhere you have to be wary of having toilet water etc thrown from windows at you as you walk to a club... has to bean adventure!

got back to the hotel late...