Florence.

After my amazing time climbing in Spain and France, (and a great night at B's birthday party..., involving Scotch Whisky and a lot of climbers, but sadly no climbing) I headed off to meet my brother, David, in Florence, Italy.

The journey started with a short trip from Lyon to Dijon, followed by an hour of wandering around town, (the part of town that is within 1 km of the railway station anyway), buying some snacks for the 9 hour train trip I had ahead of me, and sampling the delicacies at one of the local kebab shops. Dijon appeared to be a nice city, but unfortunately I really wasn't in any position to judge it.

The train pulled in to the station, and when it stopped, a couple of American girls popped out the door for a smoke. I was in no rush to get on, so stopped for a chat, and it turned out that I'd be sharing a couchette, (or sleeping compartment) with them and another friend, along with a middle aged French couple). after much enlightening conversation, cheap French wine, and filthy humour (which I'm sure the French couple understood far more of than the girls thought they did) we eventually got to sleep, following some (admittedly deserved) comments about the odour of my feet.

We arrived in Florence over half an hour late (on time for Italian trains), I bid farewell to my couchette companions who were continuing directly on to Rome, and found David waiting patiently on the platform. I was tired after a less-than-peaceful night's sleep, and David was feeling a little sick, so neither of us had much energy. Wanting breakfast, we obviously walked into the wrong bakery, and ended up walking out with a small baguette, and 2 chocolate chip buns, 8 euro poorer. We then climbed up the hill (surprisingly steep when you're carrying 25kg on your back (David had kindly removed 6kg from my front), to the camping ground where David had already spent the previous 3 nights. A nice warm shower was a welcome relief, and we headed back into town without our packs.

Florence turned out to be a rather beautiful city, with some beautiful (and clearly expensive) churches and a lot of statues... a small taste of what was to come in Rome. After a day of siteseeing, offering the local beggars some of the bread we were eating, and being frowned at, and then trying the pasta at one of the shops in the market, we headed slowly back to the camping ground and dined on their delicious pizza before creeping off to sleep. The following morning we caught the train to Rome.

It was great to see David again, It had been over 4 months since I had las seen him, and apparently I actually missed him.