Florence

On Wednesday afternoon we arrived in Florence. We checked in to our hotel, had a wee bit  of a rest before we headed down to the restaurant for our dinner.   This evening's dinner included a delicious tomato soup with pasta, pork, roasted potatos, a grilled tomato, apple pie, coffee. Sage emjoyed roasted eggplant and zuchinni and cheese instead of pork. Dinner started and ended late, we were done by about 9:45 so it was off to bed for the both of us as we had an early rise the next day for our Florence tour.  

Friday morning began with a local guide. Our bus took us to the city centre where we walked through St. Mark's Square (another one) to meet our local guide. She began the city tour by taking us to the museum that houses Michelangelo's David. This relatively small museum was located on a side street and, besides David, also had a few other sculptures by Michelangelo including four "incomplete" sculptures of men trapped in the stone, called Prisoners, and one of the four Pietas that he sculpted during his life.   We spent a fair amount of time around David. Our local guide pointed out some of the details of the scuplture to us including his broken left arm and the damage done to David on his left foot (by a vandal) and the damage done to his right shoulder (by pigeon poop). We also learned that upon his completion, David would have had gold leaf on the tree stump behind him and on the ball that he is holding in his right hand. Over the years, this gold would have been scraped off by those looking for extra money. Originally, David had been on display in the political square of Florence. Wanting to preserve this sculpture, he was moved by ox and cart over the course of a four day four night journey to the museum where he now stands.  

Our walking tour continued from the museum to the site of the Duomo. Here, a large church, bell tower, and bapistry are located. The bapistry was completely covered by scaffolding with the exception of the famous doors (which are actually replicas of the originals) The Gates to Paradise. The Duomo and the bell tower are beautifully built. Three different colours of stone (white, red, and green) make up the exterior of this building.  

Our guide then led us to the Political Square where David originally stood but has been replaced by a replica. There are a number of other statues in this square including a large fountain and a significant number under a covered arch way.   The last stop on this tour was to a leather shop. Apparently there were a number of people who were interested in buying real Italian leather. We were told that we were going to watch a leather making demonstration. Some dude rolled a wee bit of guilded gold onto a leather garbage can and that was the extent of the demo. Then it was off to a sales pitch by the owner who let us know the fabulous deals we could get from him and only him. Once the pitch was over, Sage and I hightailed out the doors and back on to the streets of Florence.  

Sage and I had free time for the rest of that day. We wandered along the Arno river and stuck to the side where the dun was shining. Along the river, we saw Ponto Vecchio, which is a bridge over the river that is covered with shops selling gold and leather. Originally, many other markets existed on the bridge but a leader put a stop to that as butchers were throwing their waste into the river causing an unholy stench.  

As we left the river, we walked down a shopping street where high priced, well known retailers were located. We window shopped here. We also stopped to look around some independent stores that were a more reasonable price point. Sage had seen Brandy Melville, an American store that she likes, on our bus ride into town in the morning. We hunted this store down on foot and Sage did some shopping.  

In the centre of Florence, we found a lovely pizza restaurant where we stopped for a couple of slices. We then walked along the main road to find our gelato for the day. Sage had lemon and I had coffee. A slight pattern had developed in our eating habits in Italy!  

We made our way back to the hotel on foot by around 3. We had spent the day walking and were ready for a rest. Since we did not have wifi in our room, we hung out in the lobby for a bit catching up on our social media.  

After our rest, we headed down the street for a coffee and a fanta. Dinner was salad and fruit in the hotel via Room Service.  

Tomorrow off to Pompeii and then Sorrento for, unbelievabley, the last two nights of our Italian adventure.