Well well worth waiting for (3rd October)

The butterfly did not work because the time was an hour behind - our fault, but we woke up with plenty of time to catch the bus. Today we check out of Rome and make our way our way back along the Italian peninsular on our unrelenting quest to see as much of Europe as possible in 97 days. Our first pit stop is anything but an ordinary autogrill however as we find ourselves the quaint little city of Orvieto. To get into this walled city you first need to catch a funicular from the motorway up the impressively steep defensive cliffs. Once there we're given the choice of checking out the amazing scenery and take a short bus ride to lunch near the cathedral, or checking out the amazing scenery and exploring the well. We're a little over seeing cathedrals / churches and basilicas so we opt for the path less travelled, ignore the awaiting bus and pop over to the well. Even though it's right on 10am and the opening hours are from 9am -the door is firmly locked and there's no one around. Rats - the bus will have just left and no we can't do either option! As we head back up the driveway Mike spots a lady walking in the other direction with a key in her hand. She can't be just going to check out the view - so we follow her back and get into the well. Just another example of the work ethic of Italians for her to be an hour late huh? The well is brilliant and was built in 1537 under the fear that the pope living in the city at the time had regarding potential sieges of the city. The thought they'd have to make it 30m deep, but it took 53.1m to reach the water level! It isn't the usual well with a bucket on a rope - this one (designed by Michelangelo) has two spiralling staircases that donkeys could walk along with buckets to fetch the much needed water! It gets pretty creepy down the bottom even with the small amount of modern electrical light - we hate to think what it would have been like in the 16th century! The 248 steps are a bit of work to come back up, but at least we didn't add our camera to the clear pool at the bottom like one unfortunate tourist obviously had! Because the next bus is a while away - we enjoy some more views before heading back down the funicular and grabbing some pizza (margarita of course) near the bus. Not the usual toilet stop and 'well well' worth doing! Part of the reason we can afford such a long break today is because it's a short day, as Coops and Mick get us into our destination of Florence before 3pm. The approach into the city is amazing - as we drive past the lookout of Piazza Michelangelo, somewhere that Mike was very keen to go to... but something that will have to wait until next trip unfortunately. On the drive in Coops our guide tells us about the birth of the Renaissance which began in Florence many years ago. Call Shona a blonde, but it was only a week ago that she realised the teenage mutant ninja turtles were named after the four most famous artists of this period - Donatello (sculptor), Michelangelo (sculptor, painter, architect), Raphel (painter) & Leonardo (painter, engineer, theorist - one of the smartest men who ever lived). These guys were all born in Florence within a 200 year period. The renaissance was fueled because the middle working class in Florence became very wealthy through selling wool and leather etc. This meant that they had more money than needed and invented banks to put it somewhere or they used the extra money to pay for elegant buildings and art throughout the city. Florence is well and truly dominated by the Duomo - an almost insanely over the top sized church in the middle of the city, the forth largest in the world! It's one of the locations on Coops' slightly illegal orientation walk (tour... but hush hush) of the city on the way to dinner. We also go past the Uffizi gallery which has sculptures of important Italian artists from the Renaissance (unusually Raphael is missing from role call), the Ponte Vecchio (another of only 3 bridges in the world with shops all along it), the hidden passage across the river and past the building where the statue of David is. Apparently this is a 'must do' in Florence, however we don't feel the need to queue and pay to see an impressive statue when we've seen so many impressive statues on this trip -and when there's a massive replica on display for free in the square, plus we don't have time today. Interestingly the real statue used to be where the fake one is -until someone threw a table out the building window and damaged it... who throws a table out the window -seriously? We then go to a leather factory for a pretty underwhelming talk on Florentine leather -which is basically just put on so that we'll go into their factory shop. At this point we break from the group because we need to get back to the hostel (making some purchases along the way for Shona) and have dinner before meeting out friends Tim and Clara for drinks. One of the great things about Busabout is that you see people repeatedly and can make friends with some really wonderful people - even if they happen to be Australian. It's the last time we will see each other as our trips take us different directions so we talk over beer and strawberry daiquiris in the hostels' roof top bar overlooking the city till about midnight, when we go to bed and hope that our butterfly alarm clock plays ball and actually wakes us up tomorrow!