Day 10: Exploring Florence and Wine Tasting

Today we began with a walking tour of Florence. You could really tell we were in the fashion capital of the world because the streets were lined with high end fashion shops like Gucci and Prada and H&M. Walking through I felt like a broke college student because everything was so expensive. 

Our tour guide pointed out some funny street signs that a French artist who lives in Florence adds to. They were super cute and had all sorts of different designs.

Then we saw a boar statue where people stop to rub it's nose for good luck. There is also a belief that if you stick and coin in its mouth and it falls out into the grate below it, it means that you will return to Florence.

We also saw this building that is now a museum and there are statues of famous artists from Florence in the outside columns. 

After we got a few goes to wander around and see a few palaces that are now museums or government buildings.  There are statues everywhere in Florence and today I found out that the bag I bought yesterday might actually be real Italian leather. Who knew?

A bunch of us tried to climb to the top of this one cathedral, but it turned out to be €15 to climb it and none of us really had the money to climb stairs so we wanders across the river and found a cute park where we just sat for a little bit.

For lunch we had some paninis that have been voted the best in Florence for the last 2 years and gelato that is the best in the city as well. 

Then we went wine tasting in Tuscany! The drive there and back was super fun because we got music going and everyone was dancing and singing (though we were much louder on the way back because of the wine).  I didn't really like sny of the wines, but the vineyard was cool and we got to see where they make and store the wine as well.

I didn't like the wine here either so I guess I'm just not a wine person. We did go or for drinks when we got back, but I onlyot an virgin cocktail that was actually really good. Everyone was so funny because they thought I was drinking and I've kinda established that I don't really drink at this point, so everyone was surprised until I explained that my cocktail was virgin.

Tomorrow we are off to some islands (I think) and the beach!