We stayed at Michelangelo Campsite , the cheapest stay in our trip, only around €10 per night. per person. There were no light and electricity in the tent, only two single bed. We used our mini torch to shine at our bags to get clothes for bathing. The bathrooms were some distance away from our tent.

As we walked through the campsite to the bathrooms, we passed by a garbage site and saw fireflies! I had never seen fireflies in the wild and seeing such magical insects hovering at the garbage was never a picture formed in my mind when I was reading fairy tales in my childhood!

It was fun at the camp site, though with bare necessities. We picnic in the night at the terrace, overlooking Florence under the dark sky. After picnic, as we were walking back to the tent, all of us suddenly realised that we were only wearing shorts after bathing, and had forgotten that it was night time in the cold! We dashed back to our tents, as fast as we could, all shivering in the cold wind.

In the middle of the night, the cold air crept under my blanket and I woke up trembling. I learnt something - tuck in the blanket under the mattress so that no cold air could invade!

Florence is a great beauty!

The next morning, we headed to Ponte Vecchio. Our tents were nestled among the olive trees in the campsite.

On the hill overlooking Florence in the daylight is mysteriously enchanting; it was like being brought back by a time machine to centuries ago.

We passed by Piazza Michelangelo, a statue of David on the hill on the south bank of the Arno River. The site was designed in 1869, with a great view of the city to offer.

Ponte Vecchio is a Medieval bridge with three segmental arches over the Arno River. There are shops built along the bridge. The striking orange and yellow colours of the bridge certainly certainly also contribute to its unique characteristic.

The reflection of Ponte Vecchio and the buildings on the placid water surface added another mesmeric effect that had intrigued us to capture the magical moment. After all, this famous bridge in Europe is so popularly painted by artists for centuries.

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We walked along the historic buildings and naively believed in a trickster who looked like a South American. He showed us that by waving the paper doll in front of the speaker, the paper doll would dance. Seeing is believing, but not always! We tried to spot the trick; we tried to see if he was manipulating the paper doll, but we just couldn’t find any loophole! We couldn’t see any string attached to the paper doll too. I wanted to open the packaging which was only loosely stapled to check the content before I paid. Then the trickster became very impatient and fierce that he didn’t allow me to check. We bought two - a Pikachu and a Minnie Mouse at €2.50 each! In fact, there were many peddlers along the passageways selling the same stuff too. (See below for how we discovered that we were being tricked.)

There were also people selling padlocks to lovers, to connect the idea of love and lovers by locking the padlock and throwing the key into the river, and the lovers became eternally bonded. Oh, I had seen this before on Mount Huangshan in China, where the people there do the same thing. And I heard that the keys are alike, so even if the lovers throw away the keys into the abyss, the peddlar could open the padlock again and sell it to other lovers again and again.

P.S: Back in Singapore, we tried to make the paper doll dance in front of the speaker on with music. You must be thinking we were very stupid. No argument over that! Then I found that the piece of paper in the packaging was a piece of instruction, surprisingly, written in English. It instructed us attach the string to make the paper doll dance. One might not see the magic if the trick is performed tactically. We were so silly! The paper doll is actually a string puppet. As a tourist, I used to buy things out of impulse when seeing something special in that country. Also, I realised that tricksters are normally fierce to intimate the victim so that the victim would just give and take instead of hesitating further. After much incidents that had happened in many countries, I think I have grown some wisdom at last!

Next: to Pisa for the leaning tower!