Self-portrait taken on top of the Duomo in Florence: but you have to look real close to find me. After climbing a horrific number of stairs (note: not out of breath!) the view was breathtaking. In another life I’d love to be a Florentine – preferably living close to the Boboli Gardens. Visited those and fell in love. How to make a hillside into a formal garden: a lot of backbreaking work it must have been. Gardens are works of art – but ever changing ones – which I like. Leave a garden alone for a couple of years and it reverts to wilderness.

‘Nother thing I fell in love with is the little buses that cruise the city. Blogged about them earlier, include a picture taken from one of them here.

To round off my Florence impressions a pic of the ubiquituous scooters, preferred by young and old alike as a means to travel through the city at too great a speed.