The problem with Interrailing is you rely on trains

We awoke extremely early on Tuesday morning to get to the train station in time for our 8.45 train to France and to escape the “Binjas” (Barcelona + Ninja = Binja [Gerard's phrase for the pick pockets]), only to find when we arrived at the station that it had been cancelled and the only other train crossing the border that day was an overnight train to Milan costing over £100 each! Thankyou travel insurance with excess waiver (we hope).

The rest of the day we spend planning how we were going to get from Milan to Nice. It turned out the best option was to get off the night train at Turin and run to the next station in 15 minutes to get a train to Ventimiglia before getting a train from there to Nice. We headed to check out the Nou Camp, which was cool because there were no Binja's and spent a long time eating lunch.

The train from Barcelona to Turin was awesome, very comfy in our own private cabin where we watched Changling and Slumdog Millionaire (very good films). Yesterday we manged to get to Monaco where Gerard did his best to work out the route for the Grand Prix. We climbed up the hill to the palace and got some stunning views over the cove and then went back to Nice where we walked along the beach and the Promenade before heading up an even bigger hill to see a giant waterfall at the top, which was gorgeous but just our luck the camera ran out of battery before we could take a picture.

It was a shame that we only had the half day in Nice because it was such a nice place. We think we'd definitely go back to the Riviera for a holiday – the views and the beaches were lovely.

This morning started before 4.30 am (not much fun) because we had a train at 5.15 to catch, but surprise surprise we got to the station and it had been cancelled! This really messed up our schedule because we should have arrived in Pisa at 11. Instead we took the next train, another train to Genova and caught the Eurostar to Pisa (but guess what? - this train was delayed by 40 minutes).

Pisa, however was great and cheered us up a lot. The tower was pretty cool and we did our best to correct the lean (see photos). We also had some great ice cream before heading back to the train station to reach Florence.

Florence is beautiful. It is like an artist has painted and sculpted a city in the middle of tuscan hills. We arrived and went for a walk to Plaza Michaelangelo to watch the sunset. The next day we again took a wander marvelling at the Cathedral in particular before entering into some lovely gardens full of amazing sculptures.