I completely reccommend travelling by train to Italy. It's brilliant, it's easy and it's guilt free. We Eurostarred it to Paris, then Palatinoed it overnight to Florence from there. You could do it straight but we overnighted it in Paris, which felt right. (see www.seat61.com to get anywhere in the world without going on no plane.)

Arriving in Florence at 5.30 in the morning is perhaps not the perfect introduction to this legendary city. Arriving in Florence at 5.30 in the morning in the pouring rain is doubly tiresome. We trudged the streets, running along back alleys and all sorts, searching for somewhere to shelter us and feed us coffee and croissants (we didn't know or care at this stage what the Italian equivalent might be.)

We found one fairly lacklustre place open to the elements. The warmth garnered around our thimble-espressos didn't make too big an impression so we hailed a passing street-seller and bought a 4euro brolly (presumably these street sellers react to the market each day with stock to suit a variety of conditions. Oh, that it had been a sunglasses day!)

We got wet socks at the Ponte Vecchio and were amazed by all the (closed) jewellers. I had a trickle down my neck at the cathedral's famous duomo and we strolled across damp squares, kicking at pigeons emigrated from Trafalgur Sq.

Then genius struck! The Uffizi! Indoors! Radiators! Perfect!

Not so quick. Advice for the Uffizi: book ahead. We turned the corner to the Uffizi only to discover one of those terribly desperate signs: "2 hours queuing from here" in 18 different languages. With one day in Florence, rain or no rain, did we want to spend 2 hours in a wet queue with 18 other nationalities? Surely the statue of David can't be that superior to any other statue of David?

So, we went and had lunch at the back of some salubrious restauarant. That's one thing you can depend upon almost anywhere in Italy - a good lunch. A couple of camparis to settle us down - it was probably still only 11.30 after all - and the usual 5 courses of blow-out deliciousness, did us proud and we felt much more optimistic about the afternoon's outlook. We finished up our coffees after just 3 hours and emerged from the dingy shadows into...

Bright sunshine!

Florence is beautiful in the sunshine!