What happened in Florence GHB? My wife and I just walked around, she loved it, Ponte Vecchio, Gates of Paradise, all the little side streets (she loves taking pics of old shutters) and the food for me in Italy is always topper. If I remember correctly, we bought a trolley bag off the street for a tenner, and we still got it 6 years later, one of the best buys ever, lol.
I agree with Don, DOG should have been on the ground floor
well i went there for a football match, and not so much as a tourist with my girl so my view is obviously distorted somewhat.
i support everton and we played fiorentina a few years ago. it may be worth mentioning that the italians hate all english football clubs because of what happened in match nearly 30 years ago. the football casuals scene was cleaned up a long time ago over here in england, but in most places in europe there is still a lot of hostility between rival fans.
i drove a huge camper van from england-france-belgium-holland-germany-austria-switzerland-italy we came through the alps and descended into italy through the lovely moutain roads and took in some lovely scenery, it was snowing heavily but everything just seemed so picturesque and beautiful.
when we actually got out of the mountains and arrived in fiorentina there was no snow just driving sleet and pouring rain, there was no street lighting and everybody was a fucking lunatic. there were no lanes on the road just thousands of people weaving in and out of traffic, there were cars literally bouncing off my van and they just kept driving, smashed wing mirrors and all. when we found somewhere to park (we thought it was safe but it wasn't) we got out on foot and made our way into the centre to see what was happening. as we got nearer to the stadium we were expecting a bit of an atmosphere maybe, having travelled all over to watch football matches there is a general pattern, you tend to find an area where the away fans will gather and make merriment etc. what we found out was there was nowhere within 5 miles of the stadium that the fans could gather. all of the bars and restaurants were closed and anywhere people were gathering they would be moved on by police in full riot gear( with full length shields and batons drawn of course).
so i arrived at the stadium to go into the match and it was worse than going to visit somebody in prison, there was a 500ft perimeter around the stadium with watch towers and gaurd dogs etc, then you had to go and show your passports( i've never heard of this) to the riot squad as well as your tickets ( guess who never took their passport into the match
)
so after walking back to the van to get my ticket i find the van had been broken into and i don't know if the thieves heard me coming or something but luckily nothing was taken. so after moving the van to an even better lit space on the main road i finally got into the stadium ( think of the roman gladiator arena only made of concrete and barb wire) there were no seats and no roof, they did sell rainproof macs however for 20 euros (scumbags).
so the game kicks off and it was pretty uneventful, i spent most of the game looking through the perspex windows along either side of where we were sitting and laughing at all young italian men making stabbing gestures towards us. after the first half practically all of our fans were downstaris trying to watch through the exit gate because the weather was so bad and there was no seats in the stadium, standing room only.
so we got beat 2-0 and i didn't really care any more i just wanted out of fiorentina. there were no stewards, officials or police inside the stadium, as i said we were basically put into a glass cage and left. after the game we walked out of the stadium to a wall of riot shields eveb though there was no troubles at all. after making it thorugh all that shit we got back to the van to find the windows smashed but again nothing taken. it was obviously their fans and they saw the english plate and thought it would be fun to have us all freeezing our asses off that night. needless to say i drove through the night to get back to switzerland lol.
we woke up the next day to a foot of snow in the van with us, and hypothermia lol.
long enough rant for you guys? oh yeah and another friend of mine got robbed and beaten after going to see a lady of the night on the wrong side of town.
be very careful driving jig, maybe let your mate take the wheel lol.