Another day in Florence

A small amount of jetlag still in our bodys let us wake up early.

Julia and I went for a walk to get a newspaper and a cup of coffee.

Overcast skies and a little drizzle of rain greeted us at the door leaving our hotel.

But even with a gray sky Florence is a beauty.

We found a newspaper stand a block away and purchased our own first

"Gazzetta della sport" a pink, sports only newspaper, 8 pages of cycling, unbelievable.

Vino just slipped into pink and Cadel was 46 sec behind, that promised excitement for the

upcoming stages.

Walking around made us hungry, so we went back to our hotel and had a great breakfast.

Wheat bread, eggs, fruit, lunch meat and of course cheese with a hot and strong Cappuchino

would give a good base for the day.

All of us were anxious to visit the local bike shops, maybe picking up some cool stuff we won't get in the US.

The first store had an enormous inventory, I mean we have a lot of stuff, but those guys had probably twice as much.

Colnago's, Bianchi's, Wilier's and some really cool brand from Italy called Olympus of course all carbon with Campy stuff on it. Two hours later and several hundreds of dollars poorer we were finally ready to leave and fill our by now hungry belly's with some good Italian pizza.

The Kelly's should be arriving soon, there flight was scheduled to arrive @ 12.25 local time.

A new experience: Mozzarella with fresh tomatoes, a large pizza and 2 bottles of red wine @ lunch will definetely slow you down for the rest of the day.

With the plan to go to a local bar next door at night, Ken saw a Canabis beer he needed to try, we said good by to our fellow cycling gang to take a well deserved nap.

Researching the Kelly's flight schedule we found out that they had to spend all day @ the airport in Amsterdam.

Poor guys.

The bar was not a hit at all, so we went for a nice walk through downtown Florence end enjoyed the local atmosphere of an old Italian city.

We waited until a quarter to 12pm to welcome Tammy and Mike, luggage still in Amsterdam.

Both were in good spirits.