At the beginning of the trip Hilton informed us that we had to use points by November or we would lose them, so we are spending the next two nights in luxury at a Hilton Hotel near Florence, François is parked safely in the parking lot.
The drive over was relatively uneventful and we arrived early. We had hoped to see a grocery store on our way to the hotel, but did not. Since we were early we tried going to one near the hotel, but after wandering around for awhile (and possibly blundering into a ZTL) we could not find it so we headed back to the hotel and checked in.
We headed downtown to give Florence a preliminary look and were really impressed. We just walked the streets but Ton killed the battery on her iPhone in about two hours she took so many pictures.
We walked down to the river to see the old bridge which is quite interesting as it is one of the few bridges to survive that continues the medieval tradition of having stores and dwellings on them.
We then came upon a Medici Palace and wandered in to check it out and decide if we would return and pay for the tour tomorrow. We took a walk around the Cathedral and decided we definitely would return for the tour tomorrow.
Having walked for awhile we decided to have a dinner of pizza and watched some Rugby on TV. Florence makes a very good first impression.