Florence 24 May

Our train trip from La Spezia to Florence was pretty uneventful, apart from the usual hassles of getting luggage on and off trains and finding somewhere to put it.  We got off the train in Florence and as we were walking from the platform into the main part of the station Sabine, for some reason, maybe it was the heat, fell flat on her face and could not move for a while.  She managed to get up and into the building but she was pretty shaken up so she sat on the floor for a while.  She has a badly twisted ankle and bruises on her knee and arm but luckily does not seem to have broken anything. Our hotel is only about 100m from the station so she managed to limp there, buying a bandage at a chemist on the way which she wrapped around her ankle as soon as we got to our room.  When we got to the hotel there seemed to be some confusion with our booking, I think they only had us down for one night instead of two, however they have put us into an apartment in the hotel which is good except it is two level and Sabine cannot get up or down the stairs.  Luckily there are beds on the ground floor too so we stayed there.  In the afternoon I went for a wander around while Sabine stayed in bed, very busy place, weather was pretty warm (about 32 degrees) but it seemed  a nice place with wall to wall shops.  Later in the afternoon Sabine managed to recover enough to do a bit of a walk round, we looked at the cathedral, a couple of other churches, the Ponte Vecchia, and some other sights, before slowly wending our way back home.  Sabine was pretty tired by then so that was our day.