In comparison to yesterday, we got to sleep in later today as there was very little to do before taking the train to Florence. When I was originally looking at the train from Milan to Florence it seemed like it was going to take around five hours to get there. Since then though, I found Trenitalia and this would be just under two hours for the journey and would cost around €29.90. A journey like that in the UK would easily have cost five times that, if not more. In fact, a journey of just over one hundred miles in around an hour from Leicester to London would have cost me over £100 in one direction if I’d not driven to the airport instead.

This morning I needed to do five miles of running, so I came up with the idea of running to the Il Duomo in time for sunrise, photographing that, and then taking the metro back so I wouldn’t need to do more miles than I needed. The journey there was incredibly easy this time, having gotten my bearings yesterday. The sunrise didn’t provide much colour, so after just a few photographs I jumped back on the metro as far as Republic Plaza. As I’d got a metrocard for the rest of the day I may as well make use of it.

From that plaza I ran to the Bosco Verticale to take some better photographs of the two buildings from the gardens below, and then continued on to Piazza Gae Aulenti - a modern looking plaza surrounded by some of the most modern buildings in Milan. Combined with the water and the colour it made it very photogenic. I found this also to be the location of the “Voices of the City” - 23 ‘trumpets’ arranged in a circle with some spanning between floors. This piece of art by Alberto Garutti is supposed to let air flow between the different floors, but people also use them to let sound travel too.

Once back on the tram it was another twenty minutes back to the apartment for breakfast, and to pack for our onward journey. We’d got so much time for this that even after tidying up we’d still got so much time left before we’d intended to leave, so just left early and after a tram and a metro ride we were at the Central Station again.

It seemed almost typical that the escalators weren’t working so we had a lot of stairs to drag our luggage up in order to go looking for the left luggage in the station. We’d not just got suitcases and backpacks, we’d got small day bags with bits we'd need for tourism this morning, and a bag full of our food to take to Florence. Whilst the left luggage place in the station is relatively easy to find once you spot the signs, it is certainly not the best one to use. We queued up, hoping it wouldn’t be that expensive, but found that they would charge €6 per bag for the first five hours, so would be costing us at least €24 for three hours for the bags we had to stow. It would have meant keeping the food bag with us though as it looked like they wouldn’t accept this.

With some deliberation I decided for us that we would attempt to find ‘Stow Your Bag’ which was a company I’d found via Google before flying to Italy. It was not far from the station, and still not that hard to find once you figure out where you’ve exited the station. On the website it advertised prices starting at €2.50 for an hour, but we decided to get one of their biggest lockers for the hours we wanted. It’s a self-service facility, and only cost us €10.49, but we had to use a card for payment. This for my bank card would mean a small charge unfortunately, so it’s something worth bearing in mind. It was however still considerably cheaper.

It was a short walk from there to the nearest metro station, and we used that to get to the Sforzesco Castle again. This time we had a chance to look around, and wandered in and out of each of the different entrances. Some of the castle was blocked off as they seemed to be setting up for some sort of event. As we’d got time to relax, we also had some gelato, this time I went for hazelnut in a tub for €2.50 - it worked out better value than paying the same for a cone that had less ice cream.

Once we were happy we’d seen it all, we walked to the Santa Maria delle Grazie church. This one is particularly famous as it’s where you can go to see Leonardo Da Vinci’s ‘The Last Supper’. This painting is of course ticketed, but the numbers are very limited, and it sells out so far in advance that we didn’t get a chance to try for tickets. We could however still go into the church itself, and there are some paintings on the walls there, but not as impressive or as famous as that piece.

We’d only got two more churches to see in order to finish our tour of Milan. It seems in this part of the world there’s always another church to see, but this is where we’d get to see some of the most impressive old buildings. We’d got about an hour to see both, and also have some lunch, so it felt like this might be tight. We were almost at the Basilica di Sant'Ambrogio when we decided to sit and have our sandwiches not far from the entrance to the Museum of Science and Technology. We realised how close we’d been to this church when we’d visited the museum on Saturday. It was a shame we hadn’t done it then as well to save time today.

Once we got going again we found the church very easily, and took a few photographs on passing, but did not go in. This church looked noticeably older with rough stonework on the outside in places. It’s one I wouldn’t have minded going in to see if this was any different, but my sister wanted to keep on moving to the Basilica San Lorenzo Maggiore - our final destination.

To reach this last church it was about a ten minute walk, but we found it very difficult to get a good photograph of the place - just as we had at so many other places in Italy so far. The crowds were certainly back to what they would have been like before the pandemic. In some ways it’s a shame, but it will be helping those that rely on this money.

This church has a fair sized plaza in front of it, and some stone columns along with a couple of brick archways. A few snaps later, and we were heading back to Sant’Ambrogio to catch the metro back to where our luggage had been left. Whilst there we found others were trying to use some of the lockers, but they’d found none were available - we’d gotten incredibly lucky this morning.

At the train station I saw the large board, and some scrolling text next to our train. I had to use Google Translate on this, and found it meant that a platform assignment was in the queue. We could see that we should go to gate C to find the platform though. I did have a moment where I thought this could be like the Roma Termini, but the board told us the platform a few minutes ahead of time, and kept with the assignment too.

There was a mass of people waiting to get on this one, and it seemed like the train might just be full. We’d both got window seats, and didn’t have enough space for stowing all our bags above, so we had to have one heavy backpack at our feet, and the other on the table in front of us. It wasn’t that comfortable travelling like that, but it was only for a couple of hours.

I think I spent a lot of the journey looking out of the window, and I think my sister may have been bored for much of it. Online it said that the train was running five minutes late due to the time spent in Milano, although it may have gained some time in Bologna that put us back on schedule. When we arrived in Firenze I picked the exit that I thought would give us an idea of where we’d need to go tomorrow for catching a coach. Even from there it was very easy finding our apartment for the week. It was so close to the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella it was incredible. We were able to take our time as our meeting time with the host was 16:00, and the walk from the train station was quite short.

For this accommodation through Novasol, it was one that had wound me up before we’d travelled. When specifying a check-in time the week before flying out (so almost two weeks before the check-in date) they’d included the option to have extra bed linen and towels. I figured whatever they provided would be enough. When they confirmed this a week later they specified there’d be no bed linen, and that got me wondering, so I contacted them.

“When confirming the arrival time, I noticed under the extra services it says "Bedlinen incl towels 10,00 EUR Per pers. per. stay" - does this mean if we don't pick this option that there won't be any bedding or towels? Or is this for extra?”

A few hours later, they replied with:

“Yes, the bedlinen and towels on this property are optional which means that if you need them you have to arrange it directly with the owner”

That was incredibly annoying, but it’s something we’d have no choice but to pay for. However, when returning to the confirmation page, it was now locked and could not be changed to add these so-called extras. My best option then was to email them to see if we could get them booked anyway. They had thirty hours to reply to me, any longer than that and I’d have to order some travel blankets and inflatable pillows from Amazon for next day delivery - it was that close to the day.

Now we were there, in Florence. We’d got our own hastily ordered bedding from Amazon, and we’d only heard from the apartment about getting the so-called ‘extra’ bedding once we’d arrived in Milan over 72 hours after. It was however better to have it, and not need it, than need it and not have it.

This place has large, heavy wooden doors, and then a gate inside that our host met us at. The person who usually introduces guests for her was ill, so although her English was almost non-existent she had to do her best to show us the apartment. There were 104 steps up to this, and there was a further locked gateway to go through as well. By the time we got through the door to the apartment there were four keys needed to get there.

As we walked in there were two sofa beds and a spiral staircase up to a mezzanine that is used as a kitchen-diner, and a door to the right which my sister would use as her room. This also provides access to the shower room. Whilst Wi-Fi had been stated as provided, it took some time before I could get their wireless router working well enough to be detected, but it wasn’t connected to the internet. I emailed the host about this, and hoped I might just get a response soon. I didn’t have high hopes though.

They’d also said the room had a Sony Playstation you could use, but this wasn’t there either - not that it mattered, as we wouldn’t use it if it had been there. In the last apartment we’d not even plugged the television in. In addition to what we’d already paid, we had to pay €110 in cash between us on the day to cover the bedlinen, the city and tourist taxes, and the €50 cleaning charge - even though we’d need to clean it ourselves. Even with the payment for two lots of bedlinen, one lot was missing a sheet so my sister used her travel blanket instead. At some point we’d no doubt find out what we’d be paying for electricity used too.

Once we’d sorted ourselves we went out and found a supermarket to get more supplies for breakfasts and lunches. This supermarket wasn’t as good as either of the ones we’d used in Milan, and was more expensive too. We got what we could, and took it back to the apartment. We’d thought about evening meals, but without an oven, we didn’t really have many choices as you’re limited with what you can do with a microwave and electric hob.

When we got back, the weight of the bottles broke the draw in the fridge, so I decided next time we went shopping I’d get some superglue to fix it. The next decision was what to do about a meal. My sister decided she’d prefer to find a restaurant, so that is what we did. We looked online first for ideas, and then headed south towards the River Arno.

It seems wherever you go in Florence, just as in Rome, you’re going to come across a piazza filled with impressive buildings. This time we came across Piazza Santa Trinita which had a number of palaces and a big church. To one side of this was a restaurant we’d already seen details of, and we could see people seated outside at. We thought that as they were open we may as well get food ‘early’. In Italy it is unusual for a restaurant to open earlier than 19:00, so this was out of character. However, when we asked for a table we found that they were only serving drinks now, and wouldn’t be serving food for another ninety minutes.

My thought was that our best option now was to walk to the Carrefour supermarket near the train station to get some food for a meal, and do the best we could. On our way there we spotted the Ponte Vecchio - a famous mediaeval stone bridge, so of course we stopped to photograph that first, even though we’d be back to see it in a couple of days.

When we moved on we came across a restaurant that had a view of the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella and was actually serving food. We decided we’d try eating there, and sat across from an Albanian couple that were visiting from Los Angeles. My sister got talking to them, as I’ve come to expect. We both went for the same - a chicken with a lemon sauce and roasted carrots, and a shared side of roast potatoes.

In Italy, the way meals usually work is that they have several courses, and they tend to pick and choose between them. Antipasti are the appetisers which will be very small dishes, and would be followed by the first course - primi. This is usually a small pasta dish, and would then be followed by the second course which would contain just meat. You can order contornis, side dishes, and these would arrive depending upon what you order. If you get a salad it would come after your course, whereas any cooked vegetables would come with it. This is then followed by a dessert, dolci, and maybe a coffee or other hot drink. It’s a wonder they can digest all that before going to bed in the evening!

We both had just the one course at €17 each, and this included some bread for the table and then €3.50 each for a juice drink. The way that bread works here is that if you ask for it, it will be added onto your bill, but if they bring it out and serve it then it will be included. Places like this will usually include a service charge per person automatically so they don’t expect a tip unless it’s an incredibly good meal.

Once we were done we headed onwards to Carrefour, and found they didn’t do much better. We did however get a couple more bits for lunch, and then went off exploring a little. This actually took us in the direction of a domed roof, and we found yet another supermarket. Having forgotten to get some water from the first one, and finding the second one had only sparkling water, we tried this one and was able to get three two litre bottles for just €0.20 each.

Once back at the apartment I fixed the fridge, after getting superglue gel all over my hands, and then spent the remainder of the evening relaxing. Tomorrow we wouldn’t get to see any more of Florence, but would instead be taking a day trip to Pisa and Lucca.