The first night of not sleeping on the move for three days was much needed. We picked up some water from a local supermarket before heading into town, but the way the sky looked, lack of water was not going to be a problem.First we headed for the largest attraction on the map, a fortress-like structure north of the station, which took us via a leather-goods market and a lot of police officers frantically diverting traffic. The lonely planet guide had said it may be closed, but in fact it had since been converted into a conference venue. We walked around it anyway, then walked on to Piazza St Marco.

There seems to be one of these in virtually every city in Italy. Florence’s offering was not up to the grandeur or sheer scale of its Venice counterpart, but it was grand enough. We moved on, walking south west towards Duamo Cathedral, the largest church in Florence. First we visited the freestanding dome, where rather plan walls contrasted with an absolutely breathtaking domed ceiling, and then visited the cathedral itself. The interior was sparsely decorated, but stunning in its simplicity, and emphasised the effect of the candle trees, four of which stood across the main floor.

Chris decided to check out the crypt, at an extra cost of €3, and then we went for lunch at a café in a nearby square. Service was awful, and the coca-cola was €4.50 per glass, which Chris didn’t discover until he had drunk two of them. We decided to leave a one eurocent tip (about 0.7 pence).

In the afternoon we visited the huge Palazzo Vecchio, Florence’s town hall since 1322. Every room is so intricately decorated that as I walked from room to room I was simply staggered at the amount of work that must have gone into its creation. Particularly the ceilings. Not a plain ceiling in sight – and gold leaf by the bucket load. It was also the seat of Italy’s provisional government between 1865 and 1871.

When it came to getting back to the guesthouse, we needed to buy bus tickets, but there was no obvious way to do so because all the ticket offices were closed. I suggested that we walk. After all, it was a pretty simple route that the bus had taken, and we both claimed to have remembered it.

We set out, confident that we could easily find our way. We didn’t bother looking for bus stops. After an hour of wandering through the Florentine suburbs, we were lost, and the bus route was a distant memory. It was no good looking for bus stops now, but we were doing it anyway. Eventually we found a bus stop that was on the right route, and followed it back to the guesthouse.

I looked at our long trip back as an enforced ‘exploration’ of suburban Florence. It was actually quite an enjoyable opportunity to examine the strange mixture of architectural styles and eccentric city planning, which is where I lay the blame anyway. After all, it couldn’t possibly be our bad sense of direction.