Things you don't want to know....

Lucas: We went to the Uffizi on our last day in Florence and I was counting how many willies were on statues and I counted 28! Theo thinks it is 29 but I am sure I counted 28. Bottle top [deduce Botticelli here, sugar plum] painted women epics [hope I'm one of them] with their toe next to their big toe longer than the big toe! [Nope - have tried stetching it but no luck.]
Me: In Florence it slowly dawned on us (screaming headlines in Italian easily ignored) that they have a serious poo problem. Reader, this blog is not unduly concerned with a person's nether regions but it seems that the whole of the historic quarter of Florence has to be - ermmm - pumped out every night. This must be an issue on the scale of foot and mouth for us Englanders a few years ago and visitors beware. We had wondered why the Florentines looked so knackered and this, it transpired, was the unglamorous answer.
And now, your (not so) silent witness:
Tony: Have you ever smelled a mediaeval drain? On the third night I went down to the street to investigate. The smell was worse than anything you can believe as they sucked the ordure of millennia from a hole in the street. Who knows, this might have been part of a ‘Mediaeval Florence Experience’ laid on by the City Council. Not known for my sensitivity, I was actually gagging as I tried to get back into the apartment ['nuff said].
And so.....let'sgettouta here...

Next day we’re on the train to Nice, the first one, for 2 and a half hours and the seats were cool because there was a button that made the seat go up higher because it was First Class and on the second train Nothing much Happened!
Tony: The train to Milan was fine and the restaurant car offered thirteen variants on spaghetti pomodoro – but no, we saved ourselves for the longer leg to Nice and the SNCF first class compartment and restaurant car. Do not believe anything you read about Euro-trains – the restaurant car should have read: Pringles Originals con café freddo (not even any warm white wine) and a compartment that had seen better days in 1972. However, it is a beautiful route even though we did not stop in Monaco long enough to buy an apartment. Nor were we allowed up for air at Monte Carlo [keeps us riff raff out, tho']. We all felt a joie de vivre when we entered France and the sea in Nice really is azure even in the rain.