A bunch of people went out last night (until 3-4am), and were looking pretty poorly when the bus got underway at 8:30.

The breakfast available in the hotel was as cruddy as yesterday, so when we stopped for a walk around an old town/fort about 40mins from Prato, we all descended on the local caf.

The place was like heaven — rows upon rows of all sorts of pastries, cakes, and various other goodies… Photos were taken by some (me included).

The hot chocolae certainly delivered a heck of a punch too — Very dark, almost strong enough for the spoon to stand up on it’s own. My first taste of real hot chocolate.

A few hours later, we stopped at a wineryfor a great tutorial on how to drink and taste wine properly.

I now know why the expensive restaurants serve small-ish amounts of wine in those gigantic glasses.

Finally, we got to rome right on 6pm, when the tour officially ended for me, and 9 others. The remaining people were joined by 9 more, all bar one of which were couples.

…just why all those ‘old’ posts are starting to show up: they’re the ones I’ve written on my PDA, and the wireless access in the hotel in Prato was free. It might take a while to get them all posted.

btw: Internet access here in italy is bizzare… they require photo ID (which they either photocopy - like the hotel did - or scan into a PC - like this internet cafe did) before they’ll let you use it.

No, I’m not spending all my time online, it was just that I’ve got an hour to spend in Florence (Firenze, as they spell it) - and my feet are killing me (2.5hrs to get in to see the statue of david, in the sun)