August 29

August 29th (sunny and warm)
Tried to make a call to Lucas this morning, but no answer. Not sure if his cell is working or not. Then we took the bus right outside our campsite to Florence and began walking the old city. Although it is still as beautiful as we remember, it has become just too `touristy’. We were entertained throughout the day by the ongoing interaction between the police and the illegal street venders, mostly Nigerian.
Today was very hot and muggy, but we managed to stay cool via the use of a towel that we continually soaked in cold water. On the way back to our site, Georg somehow lost our return bus tickets so we hoofed it up the hills which afforded us a vista we would never have seen had we taken the bus.
During the evening, we met up with the same “Top Deck” group of travelers at the camp restaurant that we had seen in Venice. Top Deck is a travel company that caters to a younger crowd using a tour bus, chef and tour guide in a campground setting. They are expected to make and break camp, do dishes and everything else is done for them. Enjoyed talking with all of them, especially a young couple from Toronto that we believe will rethink having children in the future. Before we knew it, we all realized we had not had dinner and it was close to 10 pm, so Georg and I returned to our van.
The evening ended with lovely conversation with the Italian family next to us.