Have had so many days of running around, I was hoping to come back for a relaxing last few days in Firenze - but of course it wasn't to be. I fly out from Pisa Saturday morning for Germany, and so I've been packing up my room - a task I DON'T want to leave to the last minute, because there's an awful lot of stuff to pack up and a fair bit to send home. I went to the Post Office after class today and was successful in sending one item, but they rejected the packaging job I'd done on the second item. I'd read in Lonely Planet that Poste Italia could be a little picky! Anyway, they sent me away with this second box to try again! Just had a milkshake to give me strength to go on with it all this afternoon.

Wimbledon. Lleyton Hewitt lost? In the first round? I'm having a little trouble getting tennis news, as the Italian media is not terribly interested in the sport. Any and all updates would be greatly appreciated. Anyone paying close attention, please feel free to send messages regarding the progress of ARNAUD CLEMENT. If he lost in the first round too, and I just don't know it yet, I'll cry.

I went to Roma last weekend. Unfortunately, because I had to spend my time there organising my visa for Vietnam, and because the Vietnamese embassy was a long way from everything else (or it seemed that way in the heat) I didn't get to see as much as I would have liked. I should be honest and say that another contributing factor to my not being the most active tourist was the fact that the new Harry Potter was released on Saturday. I went to the Vatican on Saturday morning - found it astounding, but couldn't spend too much time in the Sistine Chapel because the crowds were so oppressive, but fell in love with the map rooms and the Egyptian collections - and after I left the Vaticano and San Pietro I went to Roma's Feltrinelli International and bought H. Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I spent two hours sitting in front of the Trevi Fountain reading. Then I spent some time in front of the Forum and the Colosseum reading. Then on Sunday morning I caught a train to Napoli, and two more hours flew by while I was reading. I took a break from Harry to climb Mt. Vesuvius and visit Herculaneum (I can't quite imagine how large Mt Vesuvius must have been before: it still dominates the skyline so much. Hard to picture it twice as large, or larger...). Finished the new Harry at Stazione Napoli Centrale waiting for the train back to Roma. Had to read my introduction to Fascism on the train home instead. At least I threw a coin in the Trevi Fountain, so I know I'll come back to Roma and see all the things I missed.

I know I'm not allowed to say anything about Harry Potter, but please feel free to email me if you've finished it too. I'm dying to talk about it! I've been developing theories for the last two books!

Yesterday was a public holiday in Firenze, the holiday for San Giovanni, the most important saint in Firenze. Last night at 9:30 we gathered along the Arno and watched a wonderful fireworks display. Made me want to learn more about the history of fireworks. I think designing fireworks would be a wonderful job.

I finished reading Peggy Guggenheim's autobiography too, as well as Harry Potter, and am now immersed in Greek Lyric poetry. I fell in love with Stesichorus, and am just beginning the work of Simonides. I have a feeling I'm going to grow addicted to classics over the next few months as well. Peggy stopped writing so much about her lovelife after she moved to Venezia, and wrote much more about art - very interesting, but of course very subjective. I've read a bit about her initial reaction to Pollock (she was unimpressed) and how it took the advice of art critics to support his work. In hindsight of course she always recognised he was a genius - though it doesn't quite explain why she gave away 18 paintings by Pollock that came to be worth so much. I'm interested in reading a bit more about some of her other main artists, to see if, from the other side, she was always as instrumental as she says... But maybe I'm just jealous that she owned a beautiful Brancusi Bird in Space.

The days are much too hot here. 40 degrees isn't unusual, and there's no sea breeze for relief. I'll be glad to head north where there'll be at least a little respite from the heat.

Only three more days in Firenze, and I won't have seen everything - though it will give me more reason to return...

Firenze

Some brief comments only.

It has been raining in Italy the last few days, heavily. Quite glorious. After months of weather being too much the same all the time my Melbourne-girl self was glad to get soaked to the skin walking home on Tuesday night. My sneakers are still drying.

I went to Assisi. It was beautiful. Yes, Pete, I said hello to St Francis for you.

I'm still reading Peggy's autobiography. She had a lot of love affairs. So far I'm most impressed by Samuel Beckett, because I adore him.

Moy is leaving early tomorrow, and I'll have a corner to myself for a week. Am still shopping this afternoon to try to find a present for Miss Moy to take home to Sacramento.

I seem to have bad luck with wines from San Gimagnano. I'm clearly not supposed to remember them.

I bought squid ink spaqhetti and strawberry and balsamic vinegar sauce. Apparently the sauce is good on meats, cheeses and ice-cream. I should sell tickets to the first Scoffers meeting on my return!

Apparently the Czech Republic is the only place in Europe you can legally buy absinthe. Duly noted. Will be in Prague in just over two weeks.

Will be in Roma tomorrow. Am assembling all my memories of the bits of Latin I translated so badly in high school. Trying to remember Ovid's advice for picking up girls at the theatre and such things.

Will also go to Pompeii. And next Tuesday is the day when the Fiorentine folks become a little less serious. There'll be fireworks on Piazzale Michaelangelo. Jealous yet?

Wimbledon begins next week. I am sorry to find Venus and Serena in different halves of the draw, glad Lleyton's likely second round opponent has withdrawn to let in a lucky loser, sad that my favourite player, the obscure Arnaud Clement still hasn't made it back into the top twenty players in the rankings. Am hoping that either Arnaud or Nicholas Lapentti (who signed me at the Australian Open) will make it through to the quarters. My wildly irrational prediction for the event is that Arnaud will win. Maybe Lleyton can be runner up or semifinalist so he doesn't cry too much.

When Peggy's done with all her love affairs am going to read a little history of fascism, and then start packing up all but a few of my books to send home. Our merry home is broken up.

Firenze

After making my list in class last week of all the places left in Italy I want to visit before I dash off to Berlin at the end of next week (I still can't quite get my head around the fact that my time here in Firenze is nearly over...) I made another list of all the things left in Firenze that I still had to see - a shamefully long list, with some terribly important things on it. I seem to have made concentrated efforts in some areas, with multiple visits - for example the Duomo, the Uffizi, the Brancacci Chapel - and somehow missed out on other things altogether. So now I feel like I moving more into that touristing pace of doing and seeing things, instead of letting myself fall into too many long lazy Firenze days, which, aside from shopping for food and explaining to little old ladies at the supermercato that I buy Granny Smith apples both to eat and to cook with, seem to achieve very little. However, since last Thursday I have reformed, and have been dizzy with the history of Italy.

I forgot to do anything for the Wednesday lunchtime club last Wednesday, but I think I made up for it with my adventures on Thursday. Firstly I tried to visit the Medicee Library, but found that the library itself was closed - but I could still enter the foyer to see the Michaelangelo staircase. This was interesting, and I'm glad I saw it (and yes, it was of course a beautiful staircase) but I wish I could have walked up it, and see all those beautiful old books. After this I took myself to the Galleria d'Accamedia: this is the first of my shamefaced areas of neglect. I'd seen the two copies of Michaelangelo's David, outside Palazzo Vecchio, and in Piazzale Michaelangelo, but I hadn't quite got around to seeing the real thing. Strange the profound difference between seeing the copies and the real thing. I felt dizzy with it. Was talking to Moy after I came home and the way she put it was "I wish I had never used the word beautiful to describe a boy before. Because David is REALLY beautiful." No matter how many pictures, details, copies, etc I had see before, there was nothing to prepare me for the moment when, walking around the corner in the Accademia, I really saw HIM, along with several other of Michaelangelo's pieces, the others unfinished works. Another favourite from the Accademia was a piece painted by Masaccio's brother (I sheepishly can't remember the artist's name. I was so dazzled by the subject matter of the painting, and the fact that he was Masaccio's brother that somehow another piece of information was impossible to etch in my mind at the same time) supposedly depicting the wedding of Bocaccio, set in Fiesole... Fiesole, in the hills just outside of Firenze is still on my must visit list. I was considering a sunset visit tonight, but another thunderstorm has just begun, so I think I'll sit in my room with the balcony window open and watch the action... But it is my plan to visit Fiesole before I leave, and when I do I want to buy a copy of Bocaccio's Decameron while I'm there.

I also went to the Archaelogical museum in Firenze - something fatal, as now I find I want to see all the Etruscan archaelogical sites around Tuscany, as well as visiting Roma, and then Pompeii... The collection in Firenze contains the Medicee collection of archaelogical artifacts as well as later collections: housing both an extensive Egyptain collection, and an extensive Etruscan collection. I enjoyed the Etruscan piece more, because, I suppose, these were more of a revelation to me. A beautiful bronze statue of a chimera, a collection of ancient mirrors and the stray fact that mirrors are one of the most common items found at Etruscan sites. A multitude of tiny figures, strange and also seeming so very modern. I don't think I will have time this time, but I hope I'll have a chance to come back to Italy, and spend some time in the deep south of Toscana, in Volterra and the areas around, and on the road to Roma. Every place I visit simply reveals a new wishlist of places to visit. My lists are no use, because things never get ticked off, only added: one visit, or two, or ten - it's never enough for me to feel I actually know anything about a place. Looking at all those ancient tarnished mirrors I wondered what it was like to be vain two thousand year ago.

I spent the weekend with Moy and Adi on a bit of a whirlwind adventure: Moy and I were "cattive ragazze", and skipped school on Friday morning to hop on a train and head off to Verona. On Saturday we moved on to Padova, and Saturday night and Sunday we got lost over and over again in Venezia. I hardly know how to write about any of these adventures. It is easy enough, I suppose, to say that we visited the house of Juliet, and lay in a garden beside the stadium in Verona, that we visited the Duomo in Padova and the Church of Saint Anthony, an amazing spectacle: hero worship of a saint on a grand scale, unlike any of the churches I'd seen before, that we wandered around Venezia for hours, talking to mask-makers about the different characters of the traditional carnevale masks (I settled on a traditional Capitano, the curved beak mask was always my favourite...) - but somehow the weekend is still a jumbled series of impressions that will only begin to grow clear in a year or two. In between the house of Juliet and San Marco, between San Antonio and the Peggy Guggenheim collection there was a lot of walking and waiting and dragging our bags around too. Living in one place for the last seven weeks, I'd blissfully forgotten what it was like to move quickly!

My favourite thing in Venezia was visiting Peggy Guggenheim's home. Such a beautiful collection, and a beautiful house on the Grand Canal. After so much of the Renaissance here in Firenze, and after the Tiepolos and Tintorettos of the Accademia in Venezia, it was a relief to find myself surrounded by my more usual diet of modernist and contemporary work. While travelling around Veneto I finished reading both Anne Bronte's Agnes Grey (I can both see that Anne is a somewhat more consistent writer than both her sisters, but also in a way more tiresome as well: there is such an obviously moralistic aspect to her work, I read her and feel her objective in writing is to point how tiresome everyone is when they succumb to their vices... I can't help feeling there's a touch of the didactic in the clear superiority of her wholesome, brave, gentile, poor, sensible heroines) as well as the Oxford introduction to Globalisation, so I bought Peggy Guggenheim's autobiography, and have been reading it joyfully. There's something so eccentric and seemingly careless in the tone and the way the anecdotes are strung together: there's just so much colour in the whole thing, such offhandedness to the wonderfully strange things that seemed to happen to her her whole life.

Then returning home, I was confronted by my list of things to do in Firenze again... so I've resumed visiting museums and churches... visited San Lorenzo yesterday, then spent several hours in the Museo dell' Opera di Duomo, and this afternoon I spent several hours at Palazzo Pitti. I emerged from the Frick Collection on Fifth Avenue in New York with a lot of new ideas on house we should be furnishing our house (for a start, where are all those Vermeers we should be splashing on the walls?) and after visiting the Galleria Palatina this afternoon I have a few more ideas, following the inspiration of the Medicees!

Tomorrow I'm going on a small adventure to Assisi, and then I'll spend Thursday in Firenze - it will be Moy's last night - before I dash down to Roma this weekend, and the Vatican. When I think of Vatican city I think of the History Channel's trivia question. What country has a population of 1000, the official language of Latin, and a birthrate of zero?

After a long absense, I've finally forced myself to brave the heat outside, forgo museums and churches, and come here to update my much-neglected travel diary. In opening, I want to say a very big THANKYOU to Pete and Molly, who both sent me Mint Slice biscuits from Australia, now beckoning me from the freezer at home, as well as other goodies, and thanks also to my mother, Bernie, Anna and Felicity who've all got into the act of mailing me things. I was in danger of sinking into homesickness a week ago, but now I feel very much loved!

I suppose I've been enjoying Firenze too much to tear myself away from it long enough to reflect on it. Not just Firenze either - so far all my little trips have been around Toscana (unwisely, my roommate Moy and I have both left all the most expensive "must-see" locations until last!). Last week Felicity came to visit from Cambridge, and so I took the opportunity to show her around a few things, and to fail to show her around others - we went to Lucca, which was a first for me, but not for her. Felicity chose the saint Zita for her confirmation name (not having received a Catholic upbringing, I'm not quite sure how these things work). Saint Zita lived all of her eighty years in Lucca. On her previous visit there, Felicity wasn't able to find any real references to Zita: this wasn't the case this time. After stumbling upon a stand of funny old postcards, we wandering into the church San Frediano, and one of the chapels in the the church was a chapel to Santa Zita, and contained her unpreserved body in a glass case. Unfortunately we couldn't enter the chapel, as a mass was underway, but we wandered around the church for quite a while. I've been told that Zita is variously the saint of charity, flowers and lost keys, and that she never went anywhere in her life but Lucca, but have to admit that after these paltry facts, I really don't have a lot to offer. Lucca was, of course, beautiful - though not my favourite of the small towns in the region. My favourite would have to be San Gimignano, where we went on Saturday.

After an uninspiring wait to change buses at Poggibonsi, we arrived n San Gimagnano ready to eat the lunch we'd carefully packed, accompanied by some newly acquired Chianti wines. I suggested we head towards one of the main squares to sit down and eat our picnic, only to find that (of course) in the three weeks since I'd last visited the town they'd blocked everything off. If we'd walked a little further we could have found a lovely spot in the shade looking on the Duomo, but we sank to the ground and ate, looking instead at the blocked-off main square. After lunch we all split up for a while, and I visited the Duomo by myself - full of beautiful frescoes, which seems to be par for the course. The one that caught my attention was a image of San Sebastien, presiding over the rear, viewed when exiting the church. I've never seen a San Sebastien with so many arrows in him. Seeing all these images, I begin to realise how little I know about the lives of the saints - everything I see and do reminds me of half a dozen more things I know nothing of. They all end up on the growing list of things I want to read more about, to research when I return home.

Also on the itinerary was an aborted journey to Siena, which would have been my third time there. I spent a Saturday afternoon there a few weeks before, wandering about the Ospedale Santa Maria della Scala: what was used as a hospital until quite recently and then converted into the museum space it is now. The hospital was begun about a thousand years ago, and the present structure is over 500 years old. In the same rooms which housed patients, there are gorgeous frescoes on the walls and ceilings, some dedicated to the legendary founder of the hospital. Like many other things in Siena it is dedicated to the Virgin Mary: the town itself is seen to have a special relationship with the Virgin, because the town has devoted itself to her for so much of it's history.

As well as the high-ceilinged rooms full of frescoes, there are also underground chapels and relics, and beneath it all, two floors underneath the hospital, they have recently installed the Museo Archaelogico. The collection itself probably wasn't very inspiring - I felt too much that I was walking through it without appreciating the differences between items. What made the Archaelogical museum so memorable for me was the fact that it is arranged in an underground labyrinth. Walking amongst that collection of ancient etruscan items, I felt like I'd stumbled into a different world.

As I was sitting in class today (after we'd learned "Pronome Indiretti", the important lesson of the day) I started to scribble down all the places left in Italy I still want to see, and have realised how many of them there are. I still have so many of the major museums and churches to see, not to mention the fact that I want to get to Bologna, Verona, Padova, Venezia and possibly Ravenna in the next few weeks.

In between my traipsing about Toscana, wandering the streets of Firenze, and doing my fair share of art-gazing (and learning to conjugate in the future tense too) I've been reading steadily. At times it feels like I've read a lot - like I've somehow "knocked over" a fair few new things. Then I gaze at lists in the back of my Penguin classics and realise how much more there is to read. But I've been reading a lovely mix of things - more Henry James (What Maisie Knew, Daisy Miller, The Bostonians and The Europeans) as well as reading Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (in modern English - I'll struggle through the Riverside Chaucer in a few years time), and then romping through some Carson McCullers short stories and essays in The Mortgaged Heart. Have been reading Keats and Anne Bronte and Simonides of Keos. Somehow my reading is travelling all over the place, and every book I finish is suggesting another ten I must read. I feel almost that this reading I've doing must be in its way even more valuable than all the things I'm seeing. Or rather, since they can't be compared, somehow it all goes into this melting pot of sensation, experience, knowledge, wonder... It feels like the pot has never been so full. I find that I want to read so many more things - so much of the great, long, daunting poetic works - want to read Milton and Spenser and Christopher Marlow, and I want to read Pope and Shelley and as much ancient literature as I can manage.

At the same time as wanting to read all these works of literature, I find that I just wish I know more about how the world works - so I've begun to read some of the Oxford Very Short Introductions... already covering such a wide array of subjects, with more due for release in the near future. So I'm learning at the same time about the way the Bible was put together, and the different bibles in use, about Cultural and Social Anthropology, about the Cold War and Classics... these odd, important things side by side: the spectre of Greek Temples and the nine nuclear warheads on Cuba at the time of the Cuban Missile crisis. I think it is that kind of juxtaposition which best explains the type of place Firenze has become for me.