How much leather (bags, wallets, jackets, belts) can a girl look at???

It was time this morning for Leanne to prove once again that she is the Queen Packer - how she manages to get so much into so little space is amazing.  Granted, she has added to her luggage but then she now has some absolutely stunning outfits - at bargain prices.

Pat drove us to the Central Termini after our goodbyes to Mimo, Sue and Roger.  I always find it hard with the good byes, especially when you don't know how long it will be until the next hello.  We'd had such a fantastic week, that it was hard to believe we were now heading off to Florence.

At the station we thought we had plenty of time, but it passed quickly.  It's such a busy station, with trains heading all over Europe.  We did get a shock when ours didn't seem to appear but then realised Florence was just the first stop on the Venice train.

Our hotel in Florence is in a great location - literally 5 minutes walk from the main train station, and just around the corner from the Duomo.  Perfect.  So we dumped our bags and started walking and 12 hours later, we're back again!  Granted, most of the walking at first seemed to be in and out of shops and around the markets.  I think that Leanne thinks she's in heaven - how much leather in the form of bags, wallets, coats and shoes can a girl look at?  Without buying?  I am not telling, so you'll have to ask her when she returns!

We did manage to sit down for a lunch pizza, and after more forays into the markets and an amazing experience while Leanne was in the process of buying her jacket, we decided we'd definitely earnt our daily Gelato.  We had all been rather remiss yesterday by missing out.

Fortified again with the gelato, we headed off towards the Ponte Vecchio and up the hill to the Michelagelo lookout for the twilight and sunset.  We were sandwiched between some London Brits - a young couple who were here for a few days and a young guy who was into videos and some photography.  I know Alex will be interested to learn that I was quite restrained with my photography by comparison.  This guy had his camera plugged directly into his laptop as he was taking timed exposures of a single scene - a photo every 5 seconds, and he was spending about 1.5 hours up there!  So you can work out how many images he's going to have on his laptop of this single scene  ....  His girlfriend and her friend stayed for about 50 minutes with him, then wandered off to get a drink and have a chat on a nearby seat while he finished.  He reckons he'll owe them dinner tonight!

We stayed until just before the sun actually went down, and headed back down the hill again and across the river.  We had a few stops for photos (both of us) and I was quite surprised when Leanne said it was 9pm and how about finding somewhere to eat - I had no idea of the time.  Probably due to the twilights and the fact I was out with my camera ...  We found an outdoor cafe for dinner and shared meals - more variety.  Leanne thought she was tired and had planned on heading straight back to the hotel.  I thought that with only one night in Florence, our hotel was the last place I was heading straight for so we ended up wandering around looking at everything that was still going on, and then came back.

Since it's now way past midnight, and we have an early-ish morning tomorrow and a heaps to do, I'm going to sign off for now and I'll add just a few snippets from today.  I hope everyone has enjoyed their time away from the office there, and no doubt you're excited and relieved to be back in that secure, safe office routine again!!!

Definitely not the best light - but hopefully tomorrow (or actually later this morning) I'll have a chance to catch the light on the correct side of it and I may even actually look at the displays in the shops as well, since quite a few of them have silver as well as yukky gold