We caught the train from Monterosso to La Spezia to pick up our rental car. As soon as we got to the train station it begun bucketing down rain. What bullshit was this, it was supposed to be summer?!
Monterosso, Italy
La Spezia, Italy
Matt got to drive first. The rain was so hectic and he’s the more confident driver… I bowed out. We kept on straight though to Pisa, where we stopped for sight seeing and lunch.
Pisa, Italy
Pisa, Italy
Pisa, Italy
Pisa, Italy
Pisa, Italy
Pisa, Italy
Yes, we did the standard tourist photo. When in Rome Pisa.
It cleared up after lunch, so I took over the driving for a while while Matt took pictures of the country side. I pulled over just outside Florence so that Matt could tackle the city driving. I drive a small car at home AND the drivers side is on the other side AND I usually drive on the other side of the road. I have trouble measuring how close I am to other cars under these circumstances and it makes Matt very nervous, haha.
Italy
Italy
Italy
There were various strange signs heading into Florence which we didn’t understand and couldn’t read… so we just kept on following gps instructions to our hotel, where we dropped off our bags, and then kept on truckin’ to the car hire drop off.
Once there, while Matt was sorting out the paperwork, the weird sign that we saw driving in Florence was on the wall of the hire place. I asked what it was about… apparently it says that you shouldn’t drive in Florence CBD without a permit, and every time you passed the sign without a permit it was a few hundred Euro fine. Fuck.
BUT turns out if we just walked to the other side of the carpark, we could pay a fine of 2 Euros, and the larger fine would be waived. Insane. So that escalated and de-escalated very quickly! Let the fun begin!
