We woke up this morning and we had a pretty easy day ahead of us. We didn't have to really set an alarm but we did have to "check out" of our room, (leave the key and close the door behind us) before we headed off for another train ride.

I had gone out early to get some breakfast for us and noticed one more thing about the sinking islands. Right around the corner from where we were staying, at the same level as our front door was this metal barrier in a door way. And then a few doors down someone had left their barrier out of the door jam. Obviously these people are in a high tide area and trying to keep the water out of their ground floor. Can you imagine having to do this to keep the OCEAN out of your front hall way? Crazy!

High tide barrier installed.

High tide barrier railing.

Land of the Mellados.

We got to the train station with plenty of time to spare, good thing, the line to get our reservation was kind of long, I think next time we'll get the reservations the day before. Met some kids from New Jersey, 3 guys and a girl traveling together. We made some comments about the size of bags and one guy said, "it's not fair because girls cloths are so much smaller". I reminded him that most girls have a lot more "product" in their bags then we can even identify. Both the girl and one of the guys jumped in and almost simultaneously said that the guys were all pretty "metro".

Is there anyway at all we may get to keep this room to ourselves.

Whatever you do, don't make the mistake we keep making, don't get on a European train without a small grocery bag of food to tie you over. We got rripped off on the train. 8 Euro (10 bucks) for a sandwich you have to make yourself, should have stocked up for the trip.

Golden ratio in nature. if you've read "The DaVinci Code" (like we have been doing)
this may make sense to you (roll over the picture).

We made it to Florence, (Firenze) and what a difference. We're in a city! I mean, after Venice, everything is SOOO LOUD!!!! Oh my goodness you forget what a car or a motorcycle sounds like until the go whipping by you at an intersection. It's a real shock to your system. Plus we had heard so much negative stuff about Florence, pickpockets and stuff, I was on "hyper-alert" mode and couldn't relax one bit.

Feeling a little hectic about walking thru town.

I really just felt like locking ourselves in our room till we had to leave but this room sucks. It's about as close to a hostel as we are ever going to get. The one thing it has going for it, it's ONE THIRD what we paid in Dublin, in otherwords it's cheap. We'll take pictures once the shock is gone. In the holy trinity of "bathroom, TV, internet", this room strikes out in all three. Bathroom down the hall, no TV and no internet. I'm jonesin' for some quality online time, I hate to admit it but I am.

The other day when we got screwed at the internet cafe on Venice, I had just printed some PDF files of some news stories that I wanted to read but didn't want to PAY to read. It was very relaxing to go back and read them at my leisure. I hate to admit it but I just don't want to be unplugged, it causes more anxiety to NOT be online then being online and dealing with the technology does.

My wife the artist, where is my hair?
I think I was just on the look out for purse snatchers as it started getting dark.

Sparkles on the water from the sunset behind us.

Ponto Vecchio means "old bridge", and this version of the bridge has stood since the 1300's but a bridge has been here, at the narrowest part of the Arno since Roman times. It use to be filled with butchers and tanners but in the 1500's the Medici Family booted all of those more common trades off the bridge and filled their stalls with artisans, gold and silversmiths.

Roll over this one... I'm ruining another shot!

Along with the jewelry shops there is a statue of Cellini,the guy responsible for putting all the gold and silversmiths on the bridge, that people put padlocks on to declare their love and then throw the key into the river. Personally, I think Rick Steves has a deal with some dude who must sell padlocks near by. Some guy we met said that this was a fairly recent custom. He also said that every few days the city comes by and cuts all the locks off.

The padlocks of love.

Another interesting fact about the bridge. Across the top is a covered walkway. If you include the approaches to the bridge the covered walkway is a half mile long. It was created so that the Medici's wouldn't have to walk outdoors from their homes on the south side of the river to their studios on the north side of the river. Crazy.

In World War II some German commander was ordered to bomb and distroy the bridge. Apparently he disobeyed orders and just rendered the bridge useless by distroying the approaches to the bridge.

Sunset from Ponto Vecchio. Didn't Beth do a good job setting up this photo?

Another little fact about today, we've now easily passed the number of days we were gone on our Australian Adventure back in 2002. If you can't tell, we're having a blast.