We were in Florence Thursday night to Monday afternoon. It was warm and
sunny even in late September. Florence was at the heart of the
Italian Renaissance -- we went into a church in which
Galileo
(Jennifer's hero), Machiavelli, Dante, and Michelangelo are buried.
The city's art gallery, the Uffizi, has some of the best-known
pieces, such as Primavera by Botticelli. The old downtown
is about eight blocks by eight blocks, and our hotel was in
the middle of it.
Visible from just about anywhere is the
Cathedral of Santa Maria Del Fiore,
mostly known for its giant dome and its tall
bell tower. You can climb 463
steps to the top of the dome, which gives you a close-up view
of the painting inside the dome, and especially of the bottom
half of it, representing a
gruesome version of Hell.
Ponte Vecchio (that's Sue!),
the only bridge to survive World War II, is covered with jewlery stores. It
leads to the Pitti Palace, which houses another art gallery.
The galleries had beautiful ceilings, but unfortunately
photography was completely prohibited. I think they used
to only prohibit flash photography, but found that most people didn't
know how to turn off their flash. Behind the Palace are the
Boboli Gardens, from which you can look into the
Florentine countryside. (You can
also find some books tied to trees.
We don't know what that's all about.)
The five of us had some great
cheap food in the restaurants there. Mostly pasta and
lots of wine. We seemed
to have a lot of trouble getting the servers to bring the appetizers
together and the pasta together until we realized, on our last day
there, that pasta is an appetizer there. That also explains
why it was so cheap. They must have thought we were strange to
order only appetizers. For our last dinner we tried to do it
the Italian way, ordering both a full dish of pasta and a
main dish. It was delicious, and I don't know how everybody
there is so thin.
More pictures:
beautiful architecture,
more beautiful architecture,
lime plaster paint,
the house of the Medici family,
some cute kid in a parade,
so many courtyards!,
so many scooters!,
a new house designed to blend in,
leather heaven,
frescoes,
more frescoes,
giant frescoes,
keep the frescoes coming,
frescoes from 1365 with colorful demons,
the Baptistry,
Jennifer and the Ponte Vecchio, and
she lives there.
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