Our flight was mercifully uneventful, though we both could’ve used a couple of hours more sleep. It was a bright and early 7 am when we landed in Edinburgh, and it wasn’t long before we were whizzing towards the city centre on the newly-opened tram. We entertained ourselves with eavesdropping on the surrounding Scottish accents and were tickled at how accurate Robin Williams’ impression of them was (at least our inability to understand them without some serious effort; be forewarned, it’s a rather expletive-laden impression).

A sadly abbreviated post, but at least something for the record! My last day in Florence was a relaxing one, as I made my way around the gorgeous Palazzo Vecchio. It was just a never-ending parade of gorgeous ceilings, painted with scenes of mythological figures such as the trials of Hercules. They even had a map room, where all the walls were lined with historical maps of places all over the world. From there, I waited in a nice long line to see the inside of the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore. I decided to forego climbing up inside the Duomo, as I’d already had a number of fantastic views of the city.

As I'm horrible at keeping up with things, this will be a highly abbreviated summary of the day's events. Today was the day for the Uffizi Gallery, and I had tickets booked for the afternoon. Before I went, I popped into the Bargello National Museum, which is primarily devoted to sculptures (one of my favourite art forms). After perusing its extensive sculpture collection, I headed to the Uffizi. Its collection was massive, though I was a bit sad that several sections were closed for renovations. I was able to glimpse at Botticelli's famous work "The Birth of Venus", amongst others.

It was to be a relatively relaxing day, as the only "cultural" activity I had planned was visiting the Galleria dell'Accademia to see David (the other one) in the late afternoon. I did plan to get in all of my shopping, so I made my way across the river mid-morning to do some browsing. My first stop was back at the Mercato Centrale, as I had a few requests from back home for silk scarves and tasty balsamic vinegar. I perused a few stalls and ended up settling on a couple pretty scarves, including one for myself.

I had a fairly leisurely start, rolling out the door mid-morning. The only thing on my agenda was the extensive Pitti Pallace and Boboli Gardens. Housed within various wings of the palace were several museums, including the Palatine Gallery, Costume Gallery, Silver Museum, among others, as well as the Royal Apartments. Luckily my apartment was only a brief walk away, so it wasn't long before I had two tickets in hand (bizarrely, you bought one ticket for the Gardens and the a couple of the museums, and a different ticket for the Palatine Gallery and Royal Apartments).

When traveling alone, I used to get very early starts–eager to pound the pavement and take in the sights. I remember buzzing around Tokyo for a solid 10 hours. Perhaps it’s age or just my deteriorating stamina, but I find it increasingly harder to do a full 8 or 9 hours of walking around, particularly alone. It also doesn’t help that Italians eat fairly late, starting around 8 pm–ironically, that isn’t actually late for me, as David and I usually eat around then, but it means you’ve got a fair bit of time until dinner. So I’ve taken to more leisurely starts, lounging until mid-morning, that way I’m not completely knackered by the time dinner rolls around. I had a few things on my list of things to see today, including the Galleria dell’Accademia, best known for housing the statue of David.

Florence is apparently a walking city, as most of the highlights are concentrated in a relatively small area. I started my journey walking through the Piazza Santo Spirito, which was just a few blocks from the apartment, which my host recommended as a good place to find restaurants. As the place is located in the Oltrarno area, across the Arno river, I crossed one of Florence's many bridges and took in a splendid view of the city and of Ponte Vecchio, the famous bridge lined with shops perched on stilts.

Our only major plans for the day were to visit the Galleria Borghese and the surrounding park area. We made our way to catch the metro and managed to catch a train just as it was leaving. It was a bit bizarre getting on, as there were a group of people standing right in the doorway that didn’t move at all, so we had to push our way in. At first, we thought it was just rudeness but continued commotion revealed that there may have just been an attempted pickpocketing.

This was to be the day for all things holy, as we were to be visiting Vatican City, the seat of Roman Catholic power. As such, we were sure to dress appropriately, with dresses of modest length and cardigans to cover our shoulders in the basilica. Vatican City was a relatively easy metro ride from our stop–a mere 15 minutes–and it wasn’t long before we were walking towards the wall of the tiniest state in the world. It was pretty much a perceptual onslaught of tour requests, so I was getting the sense that it was going to be a well-touristed day.

After the whirlwind set of sights we had yesterday, we planned a relatively smaller itinerary, though only in the size of the list. One big ticket item was on it: the Colosseum. As our apartment is located in relative walking distance to the site, we decided it might be nice to walk over. Our host had recommended we check out a church on the walk, and so we planned our route accordingly.

Despite staying up late planning our Rome itinerary, Angela and I both ended up waking up 15 minutes before our alarms went off. We got ourselves ready to go and had a quick bite of some breakfast-type food that our host had kindly provided. We made our way to the nearby Metro station, which was remarkably straightforward to use. It was only a few stops away, so it wasn’t long before we emerged at the Piazza de Spagna. It was literally just around the corner and we were standing at the base of the Spanish Steps.