After leaving Rome I traveled by train to Perugia, a student town in Umbria. The town itself is on a hillside, with the historic centre at the top, the bus station in the middle and the train station further down. The town is in a wonderful location: the view from the historic area over the surrounding landscape was magic.
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It was much colder here in Rome, given that the town is up in the hills. The people I met in the hostel were students from other parts of Italy rather than fellow backpackers. My hostel was interesting in that rather than giving each guest a key to their room, they simply asked you to leave the key in the door if you were inside or at reception if you were away. It worked fine as a system though.
I stayed one night in Perugia and sampled the local wine and chocolate, both of which were excellent. Perugia is famous for the latter. I wasn't sure whether to head to Siena or go straight up to Florence: the issue was resolved by the fact that there was only one bus a day to Siena and it had left before I got to the station. So, I took a train to Florence.
I hadn't booked anywhere to stay and all the hostels recommended in the guidebook were full, so I ended up staying in a slightly bizarre place where all the rooms were pre-fab type things lined up right next to each other and back to back in a large room. Privacy was adequate though and the staff were very helpful.
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Both of the hostels I stayed at were on the other side of the Arno river from the major attractions but it didn't take me long to get there each day. I went inside the Duomo, climbed up to the top of the Campanile to get a great view of the city, and went to the Galleria dell'Academia to see Michelangelo's David. Luckly it was cultural week while I was there so admission to the Galleria dell'Academia was free. I didn't book ahead for either the Duomo or the Galleria dell'Academia (you do it via a website and it costs extra per attraction) so I had to wait in some pretty impressive queues
On the other side of the river from the Duomo is a place called Piazzale Michelangelo, which offers an amazing view of the city. This was possibly the most beautiful sight I had seen so far on my trip:
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Florence is an amazingly beautiful city in the spring, I really loved my visit there. Here's a photo of one of its more interesting buildings:
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