Our second night at the Tent wasn’t as bad the first. Besides the fact that it wasn’t as cold, the extra blankets were just enough to make it bearable. In the morning of the 24th (which by the way is Miles birthday) we woke early so that we could catch the early train to Zurich. And I must say that the views from the train that morning were just remarkable. Before we arrived in Zurich I called to let my friend Garry know that we were on our way, and he agreed to pick us up from the train station around six that evening. We arrived in Zurich around noon, which gave us six hours to spend on the town. We spent our time walking around, viewing the sights, tasting the local cuisines, and sampling chocolates (mmm…mmm…good!). Zurich was a lively city and definitely a place I’d like to return. We did however run into one little incident at the train station when Aaron was accused of not paying enough to use the bathroom (truth is he had actually over paid). We left hearing the distant murmurs of “Stupid Americans”. When we finally met up with Garry, he took us back to his place where he and his wife treated us with the greatest of hospitality. They fed us until we were stuffed and then put us up for the night. We woke the next morning of the 25th to COFFEE (man do I miss coffee in the mornings…lol!), and probably the best tasting croissants I’ve ever sunk my teeth into. After we finished breakfast Garry took and dropped us off in old Zurich. From there we decided to spend our last few remaining franks before we headed off for Venice. We could only think of one thing to end our memories of Switzerland with and that was more chocolate. The train ride to Venice seemed like forever, but the views through the Alps sure made it worthwhile. When we did finally reach Venice we had no luck whatsoever finding a hostel, but Aaron somehow managed to find us a hotel at a reasonable rate (up to this point we’ve managed to keep our budget down to about $30.00 a day U.S.). That evening we sat down for a genuine Italian spaghetti dinner, and then walked around like any average tourist. The streets and alleys went off in every direction with no apparent rhyme or reason. It didn’t help that I had lost our map, but fortunately we managed to find our way back to our room. The next morning of the 26th we had planned on waking in time to get an early jump on the crowds, but when the alarm went off we were all feeling the weight of being fatigued and slept in for a few extra hours. When we finally did get up and going we headed straight to the train station to make reservations for an afternoon ride to Florence (up to this point we hadn’t had to make reservations, we just jumped on any train at any time we wanted. Unfortunately the Italians required it and stuck it to you on the reservation charges). When we got to the train station the tourists were pouring out of that thing like crazy. After making our reservations we went and hopped on the local water transit and took a ride through the canal. Well worth it! We exited at San Marco Plaza, took few snap shops, and waded through hordes of tourists. Going through those narrow streets and alleys when it’s elbow to elbow with people made me a little leery to make quick turns for fear of taking out a few of them with that big heavy pack on my back (Miles had actually done that in Munich and knocked a bicycle in a car…LOL). I enjoyed Venice, but not too sure if it’s a place I care to go back to. It was just simply too crowded! (Oh, and Walt if your reading this I fried your charger…LOL!). Florence was an amazing city! The attractions worth seeing in Florence were all within walking distance, and man did we hit hard. It took us about three hours to see what we wanted to see; in fact we by chance happened upon a fascist protest on the march. The street they were marching down was lined with a police barricade incase a riot broke out. I snapped off a few shots when a store clerk behind me said “I don’t recommend that, you might bring attention to yourself”. Though I wanted more shots I figured it was probably in my best interest to put the camera away. After the protesters had cleared the streets we sat down to a large cheese pizza (its official, we’ve dined on spaghetti and pizza in Italy…LOL!) The reservation line at the train station was horribly slow, but once again we made ours just in time to catch the 8:10 to Rome. Florence in a nutshell “It lacked nothing in beauty and culture, and the lack of over crowdedness do to tourism made it a delightful venture (definitely one of my favorites!)”. When we arrived in Rome it was around 10:00pm, so we went right to work locating a hostel. The first one we went to was booked, but they called around and found us one nearby. It sure was nice ditching those bags; once we did we went out to the patio and chatted up a conversation with some Californians we had met about twenty minutes earlier. Needless to say that didn’t last long before the weight of the day caught up with us and we decided to call it a night.