So Thursday I chilled out a bit, literally since it rained lightly, but also in the relaxing kind of way. I headed off at about 12 and wound my way to Campo del Fiori and through the Jewish district both of which were really pretty and worth a look. Then on the the Protestant Cemetery to pay tribute to Keats, Shelley, Goethe and lots of cats! There's a sort of cat shelter thing run by volunteers in the cemetery so there are a lot of cats about. It's kind of nice, they're very quiet and there's a poem by the gate about the guardians of the souls. Then back to the hostel, so only three hours of wandering instead of my standard eight! More relaxing, read my book, went to the supermarket, cooked some dinner... That was it for me!

Friday I got up early and headed to Tivoli to see Hadrian's Villa! The bus took longer than I expected and by the end I was busting so instead of getting off the bus at the Villa Adriana stop I stayed on until the terminal assuming there would be a loo there. Not only was I wrong, but turns out the terminal is in central Tivoli - on top of a hill. I ducked into some kind of official building (Uffizio di Tribunale Tivoli?) for their facilities before having to figure out how to make my way to the bottom of the hill to find Hadrian's holiday hot spot. I didn't want to follow the motorway because it had no path and wasn't very pretty so I just found a road that headed downwards and kept walking... and walking. I considered turning back but when turning around requires steep uphill it's not much of a bet which I'll choose! It all worked out anyway, turned out the reason there was no traffic was the big guard rail that ran along the main road and across the end of my path. So I jumped the rail and found myself in the right area! Twenty minutes of sign following and I had found the villa, paid the exorbitant fee and found myself in a lovely green park. I followed various signs and discovered that that Hadrian wasn't so dumb. The whole area was lush and beautiful, and very peaceful. It must have been a lovely retreat from the city then, and it was definitely a nice escape from Italian traffic!

Of course getting home was a mission, but I found the right stop with my limited Italian (or complete lack) and a nice Italian man who realised I didn't speak any Italian but kept talking for another five minutes sold me a ticket! So I found myself on the right bus and got back to Rome in time to cook myself the rest of my pasta and repack my bags! I'm getting really good at packing, it's still annoying but now I've got it done in no time at all. I'm thinking I need to buy something really annoying and bulky to challenge myself, like maybe Spanish boots...

Saturday I wanted to find this cool sounding market with lots of food and clothes which I had marked on the map, and I did find a big space which seemed ideal for holding a market, but sadly no actual market was found. Oh well, next time! So I just meandered again, one of my favourite activities and this time strangely found myself exactly back at Termini, really near my hostel! So I went to the supermarket, bought some lunch, ate some lunch, collected my bags and headed for Florence! Very excited.

Found my hostel almost easily and settled in before going for a walk to find a cash machine which would except my sad foreign ATM. Actually it wasn't that difficult, it's just that Italy is full of reginal banks (Bank of Tuscany, Bank of Naples...) and lots of them don't take Plus cards. No stress because the big ones all do and BNL came through for me, handily placed near a gelato place!

So that was yesterday. Today I headed for Pisa to confirm that the tower of is still leaning. It is. I almost skipped it actually but the train was free on my Eurail pass so I though I might as well. The thing is I've seen lots of cool old towers which are still upright, and that seems somewhat more impressive than one which is tipping. Still, it does lean which is something of a novelty. I didn't climb it because a) it leans, not a trait I generally look for in climbable architecture and b) it costs €16 to climb it which is what I'm paying for a bed each night, I just don't approve of that kind of scale. I did however get a lovely photo of me in front of it which will go up on Flickr if/when it starts working!

Tomorrow is Monday and everything in Florence is closed so I'm going to do back to back day trips and visit Siena. My hostel doesn't have free internet this time (so sad) but I've made sure my one in Bologna does because I'm a communication junky.

Oh and I've compiled a list of tacky Pope souvenirs. I think the winner is the pill box with the Pope shaking hands with a Cardinal, both in big hats. Runners up include magnets, badges, collector cards, calendars and full A2 posters. Honorary mentions are the Catholic Priest calendar (check out Flickr) and the Vatican shot glasses; due to their lack of Pope they couldn't win the grand prize but they should really have had their own category!

I guess that's it for now... I'll update again in a couple of days!