Arriving in Florence

Here I am in Firenze - or Florence to the millions upon millions of British and American tourists who are headed this way. And many of them are already here! After Trieste, when you could notice if there was a swell in the number of english-speaking foreigners (to around 20), the town seems to be thronging with visitors from overseas.
This is good news if you are in the tourist business - everything is crowded - from the Ponte Vecchio to the smallest wine bar, It makes it a little challenging sometimes to get around in the city centre, but as Massi said, it creates a great atmosphere - with everyone on holiday you feel a little of the holiday spirit too!
I arrived on Sunday afternoon from Marche, and met Massi at the station, map in hand, to help me get to the apartment.
My first encounter with Florence's one way systems passed successfully thanks to the co-pilot with directions, but since then I have been driving around lost in the labyrinth! (Mostly happily, although my sense of humour disappeared on Sunday night when I was lost on the way home!)
On arrival I dumped the bags at the room (very pleasant, like a large hotel room) and headed straight out to wander around the city. We watched the sun set over the Ponte Vecchio, beer in hand, calling classmates up and down the country to check in! Janet and Marina arrived later on and so our first night in Florence was in a small trattoria, with a bottle of red and Florentine steak. (Once we got the bill, we decided that the steak is off the programme for a while!)
Then a bit of a wander around the city, before heading off on the incredibly long journey back - once we know the streets nights like Sunday, driving around for hours around one way systems, will seem like a bad dream. But it was certainly a reality on Sunday... If ever you needed GPS, its here.