Before heading out to Florence on Saturday, my Dad caught up with work emails while my Mum and I explored Piazza della Repubblica, where we found a church, Basilica of Santa Maria that Michaelangelo designed before he passed on at the age of 82. I just love how you can find gems like that all over Italy, maybe in a couple hundred years from now, people can say that about Singapore too 🙂

After a quick lunch, we were on a train for Florence. It was a short hour and a half ride, which is enjoyable especially when you have a window.

And yes, outlet shopping pretty much sums up what we did in the Tuscan region. Only coz we didn’t check that museums were closed in Florence on Mondays, when we arrived on Saturday afternoon we relaxed around our hotel, soaked in the Tuscan air and rented a car for the drive to the shopping outlets on Sunday; thinking that we could check out the stuff within the city on Monday before getting on the night train to Zürich, Switzerland.

On Sunday, with our trusty GPS in the car, we found ourselves at two outlet malls where my Mum decided that this was only the heats and paced herself for the finals in the US, where I think she’ll go truly shopping crazy with the other true shopper in the family, my sister 🙂 The drive through Tuscany was really nice and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

We were going to squeeze the Prada factory outlet in as well but after The Mall, we were ready for dinner and headed back to Florence. The plan for Monday, was to check out the Statue of David early in the morning coz I heard the line up for it was usually crazy and head out to Prada after lunch but then I found out they were closed on Mondays 😦 So with a slight change in plans, we ended strolling around and stumbled on a church around the corner of the hotel. That’s what I really like about Italy, there’s something to see in just about everywhere 🙂 I wasn’t planning on visiting a church so I wasn’t quite dressed for it but unlike the Vatican, which turns you away if you’re not dressed properly, this church provided you with a disposal cover up 🙂

Not bad, huh? Like all the other churches in we saw in Rome, the architecture was similar and the art that filled it was just as amazing.

Then it off for a quaint lunch on the way to the Prada Factory outlet, where prices were pretty good and a good deal could be found if you could find it in your size. Needless to say, everything I liked didn’t come in my size :p

Then it was back to Florence, returned the car, our last dinner in Italy and off to the train station for Zürich, where the Swiss-German pronounces it as Choo-rik.