Today was going to be a much better day weather wise and seeing as we had our 1G of internet left for the day we planned to sort some Switzerland accomodation before we headed back into town. We found an awesome looking place in Frutigen that was brand new with no reviews on Airbnb yet which was going to be a risk but hopefully a good one! I moved the washing outside into the sun and by the time we got ourselves together it was around 11am. There was a little bit of a delay to the morning also as there was no hot water when I went to have a shower and I was really concerned I had used the gas all up trying to heat the place with the gas element! It did get Lew out of bed as he came down to fiddle with some timer switch which allowed the hot water to turn back on. Who knows what sort of system these people are running to reduce the costs of running a Bnb. I drove us into town this time and Lew sat in the back seat filming some of the drive with his steady cam. It was even more beautiful in the sunshine and the windy back roads through olive groves and small towns gave off a fresh smell of the countryside. With it being a Saturday the parking structure was initially full but after a 10 minute wait for people to leave the structure the machine let us in and there was still a surprising amount of parks available. Since we were in the same area as last night we found the hairdressers called ContestaRockHair and the same women was there as last night stating we would have to wait only 10 minutes for an appointment. Lew was up first and he had this stylish young bald guy with tatooes that gave him a very cool and slightly different to usual hair cut. Lew wanted it a bit shorter in the front but the hairdresser had three reasons as to why this wasn't a good idea - I think it was safe to say he knew his stuff. It was a short back and sides look with a slightly more bowl cut/ monk look on the back half which was a little strange...just as well it grows fast and its also getting cold so no doubt he will be wearing a hat anyways! My fringe was next and for once he understood when I asked for an oval shape - long on the sides and shorter on the middle and made an excellent job. They didn't charge me for my fringe but Lews cut was €28 ($47 NZD) - the most he has ever paid! The guy gave us a few suggestions as to where we should go in Florence off the beaten track and we waved goodbye with a "ciao" and headed off. We both felt a lot better not looking so scraggly. I think I mentioned this yesterday but this street called Borgo La Croce which we were on currently reminds us so much of Aix-en-Provence and has such a local feel about it. No silly tourist shops in sight but instead some hip Italian fashion shops. We came across one called Moy Smartclothing and I know the name really doesn't lead on to the fact that it has samples from a designer called Silvian Heach. There was also this super cool brand from the one and only Auckland New Zealand called N.Z.A which we explained to the lady we had never heard of despite living in Auckland! She told us it was definitetly from there but funny enough when I went into the store locator on their website later there were numerous stores all over Europe but not a single one in NZ. But they did some really nice sweater, shoes, shirts and even jeans but I still couldn't convince Lew to buy something as he said he didn't come all this way to buy something with NZ on it. I however found this adorable jersey by Silvian Heach for only €33 ($55.60 NZD) and didnt hesitate in getting myself another souvenir and the lady at the counter encouraged me to go to the website of the designer and check out how much it costs on there. Sure enough it is being sold for €74 ($124.80 NZD) so I certainly got a bargain 😉. From here we looked in another couple of shops on the way and picked up a small gnocchi making board for €2 ($3.40 NZD) since we decided this was probably the easiest pasta that we could master first.

We then begun the walk up to Piazza Michelangelo at about 1pm and the sun high in the sky had certainly warmed up the day for our short climb up the hill. This place is absolutely a must do as it has a view over the entire city including the Arno river and the multiple bridges spanning it. The red roofed buildings covered the entire valley floor and we were amazing to find Florence actually in the mountains. The Duomo with its red/green/white brickwork stood out as well as the Palazzo Vecchio and surprisingly we didn't have to elbow our way through people to see anything. After taking in the view and enjoying the sunshine we walked down through the rose garden and found a bench in the shade to eat some snacks. Out of the blue Hellen from our cooking class appeared and we caught up with her and sampled some of her almond flavoured cookies she had just prepared in yet another Airbnb experience. We parted ways and Lew and I commenced our long walk down the hill back through the city to the San Lorenzo market and Mercato Centrale Firenze. Somewhere in the middle of this walk down a small side street there was this incredible group of street performers playing a Coldplay song on a mixture of violins and a guitar with a decent sized crowd around them. They were brilliant and the acoustics of the street also really favoured them. We stayed to listen to their next number which was Justin Beibers dispercito before we dragged ourselves away from the crowd that was being dispersed by a taxi trying to pass through anyway. The San Lorenzo market was a bit of a disappointment being yet another tourist trap with not a local insight. If you were to buy from some of the multiple "leather" dealers I think it would be hard to know whether you were buying something genuine or a fake. Either way it did smell like a lot of dead animals! Making our way into Mercato Centrale Firenze it looked as though it had closed for the day on the bottom floor (it was about 3pm after all!) but I had read that there were some highly recommended panini sellers either on the floor below or above so we were hopeful that we could still get some lunch. Hearing a lot of people we walked up some stairs and arrived up on the second floor to a very cool eating hall surrounded by different food vendors. The ceiling was beautiful and we were pleasantly surprised as this really wasn't the sort of place I expected to come across! We walked around getting a feel of the place and working out what we wanted for lunch. There were panini's, dumplings, vegan burgers, pasta, sushi, pizza, dessert shops, wine you name it! Lew and I were both tossing up between a pizza (of course!) and a vegan burger since they looked pretty one of a kind. Going for value for money and the fact that we are in ITALY we opted for more pizza - a pizza a day keeps the doctor away right? €15 ($25.30 NZD) later we came away with two tasty looking neapolitan style pizza with thick edges singed by the woodfire oven adding more flavour and authenticity. We sat down and people watched for about an hour before finally dragging ourselves up off the table towards the Museum of Galileo which we had discounted entry to after attending the La Specola Museum yesterday.

However, it still cost us €11 ($18.50 NZD) instead of the full price of €18 ($30 NZD). The place had super fast wifi and had a free app that you were able to download and it guided you through. The entire place holds the only surviving instruments designed and built by Galileo himself. The most important of all of these instruments are two original telescopes and the objective lens of the telescope with which Galileo discovered Jupiter’s moons. There are more than 1,000 instruments on display ranging from ones Galileo used for calculating temperature to compasses, clocks, optics, electromagnetism devices and those that measuring atmosphere and light. I can't say it was the most fascinating museum for me since I don't have the engineering brain like Lew does to work out what all these strange old bits of metal could possibly do. But he did get dragged through the wax anatomy museum yesterday in which he was surprisingly fascinated by - especially this figure of an entire women with her bowls exposed in which he asked me whether I noticed how life like the vagina on it was, it even had some grey public hair! We had to rush through the museum a little since we only gave ourselves 50 minutes before closing time. What I found most fascinating and I have no idea why this is in the museum here and not in La Specola was many wax figures of the types of presentation babies have before and whilst a women is in labour. Some of them I recognised such as breach and forcepts births but there were many other ways in which a baby can be folded inside the womb with clearly no way of getting out in that position! At 6pm we were shooed out of the musuem onto the street in which the sun was setting on the famous Ponte Vecchio bridge and we hung around to watch it paint the sky with red and pink hues. On our way home we once again found a butchers shop collecting up a bit of chicken to have with beans and a salad for dinner. It was pitch black driving home and it was slightly frightening how slippery our car wheels are on some of the streets being only two wheel drive and I really hope we dont run into some snow up in the mountains as we will be in a spot of trouble. Plan for tomorrow is that we are going to Modena and will see the Ferrari museums/factories :D