Another Blog by Ben Lear

Florence was personally my favourite part in this trip by far. The place we were staying at had at the time the most comfy bed and we had plenty of free time to roam the leather markets. We did plenty of walking and it wasn’t the hardest exercise so we didn’t feel too lazy. By then I was sick of pizza and pasta so the dinner wasn’t the greatest however breakfast was edible unlike the completely awful hostel breakfast in Rome. It was very easy to move about Florence as the huge dome of Il Duomo was the perfect landmark; my group only got lost once thanks to Nick. The numbers of actual Italians selling in the leather markets was surprisingly small; it shouldn’t actually be part Italy really. The shop and stall owners were mostly Moroccan or some other foreign ethnicity. One such owner was from the states another two were from Arabia; the Moroccans that flooded the markets didn’t actually own a stall but sold “Rolex’s” from their wrists. Other than that Florence was great, spent lots of money in the leather markets and had a good time mingling with the locals.

Venice was pretty good too, a bit smaller to what I imagined but there were more canals than I thought which were cool. It was pretty difficult to move around in Venice, it be a lot like a maze as there were many dead ends and the canals complicated the routes a bit. The only attraction in Venice was really the city itself so it was good we only stayed there for a day or things would get a bit boring as we ran out of things to do after a few hours. The ferry ride was worst than any bus ride we’ve had for me, I had to stand for ages while people flood on and off constantly pushing past me so.. I’m never doing that again.

Beaucaire has been very relaxed, a bit too relaxed I’m afraid. None of us are eating well and breakfast and dinner are rather large plus we’re not getting much exercise due to the introduction of the vans the teachers drive so I feel pretty crappy and I’m guessing others are too. We usually leave about 9:30 and return to the hotel at about 4 so we do have a large amount of down time to lie around and get fat. I do enjoy heading out unlike some others who prefer to stay at the hotel, the drives out are proving to be full of drama that is very entertaining. Many road rules have been broken and more longer routes have been taken but its all good fun. We don’t really see much each day but that’ll change in Paris hopefully.

I’ve avoided the pandemic that’s sweeping through the group so far, my feet aren’t feeling nice after standing on a few sharp objects and I’m never buying coke again after spilling 3 bottles. The first was in the overnight train (not the best place to be sticky) and twice in my bag with the second time finally taking out my phone >:C