Tuesday, November 9, 2010 Day 132
After a mediocre breakfast at the hotel, we hit the streets of Florence. It was raining when we stepped out of the hotel door and it rained intermittently all day. We walked through the rain to the Accademia di Belle Arti to see Michelangelo’s David, which was very impressive. We spent some additional time in the museum - I toured the musical instruments wing while Roger and Christian toured the Renaissance religious paintings on the second floor - nothing to blog about, Roger says. It was still raining as we arrived at the central market, where we stepped into a large hall full of produce, meat, fish and other food vendors. We wandered through and saw cuttlefish, tripe, rabbit, amazing purple artichokes, and lots of other foods for sale. Then we stepped outside and came upon the soft goods markets, selling lots and lots of leather, scarves, hats, gloves, and a myriad other goods. I got dragged into trying on a beautiful buttery-soft red lambskin coat, but I wasn’t really in the market for it and the cost was 210 Euros, more than I would have wanted to pay even if I had been in the market for it! The three of us bought scarves, and Christian bought a belt, wallet and some gloves, along with a couple of souvenirs. As we walked along the streets after our market venture, we came upon a Euro store. I ventured in, and Christian joined me, while Roger stood out on the sidewalk. I spent three Euros - one on a black and white checked hat which turned out to have too large a bill and looked rather ratty, but it proved invaluable later in Venice. I also bought two packages of Patrick cookies. With a name like ours, who could resist?
We ate lunch at market - pork paninis for us, ham for Christian. The pork was wonderful - it had a rosemary stuffing which gave it a marvelous flavor, and the pork was quite tender. We were quite tired, and it continued to rain on and off, so we returned to the hotel for a half-hour nap. At the end of the half hour it was still raining, so we set a goal for 2:00 to meet Christian in front of the Duomo. I napped a bit, Roger read.
At 2:00, we climbed the bell tower of the Duomo. There was beautiful scenery on almost every side, but bad weather obscured some of the mountains and clouds turned much of the scenery gray. Back down on the ground later, we headed for the Uffizi. First, however, we returned to the Ponte Vecchio to see the open shops and check out their wares. It turns out that they are pricy jewelry shops - really pricy. We returned then to the Uffizi to see Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus along with various other Botticellis. When we entered the museum, we were subject to the usual security measures, and Roger had trouble getting through. They scanned him, and he was carrying a pocketknife which has a corkscrew (he travels prepared!) and two or three blades. The guard at the scanner handed the knife to me to give to another guard who was supposed to put it in aside and give us a receipt. Instead, he looked at my purse, opened an empty compartment, dropped it in, put his finger to his lips and shooed me on into the museum. So much for security! After we located and viewed The Birth of Venus, Roger and I were too tired to enjoy the rest of the museum, so we left Christian and agreed to meet him at the hotel later. It took us almost ten minutes to exit the museum, as we were forced to go through a temporary exhibit with some rather startling paintings, including one wherein two women were cutting off a guy’s head with a sword, and another where a woman carried a basket containing a severed head under her arm. We finally exited, found a gelato and returned to the hotel. I spent some time working out a hotel for in Venice and printing up the booking information and a Google map of Venice.
Dinner was in a cafeteria, where I had minestrone, lasagna and fennel in olive oil. Roger had lasagna as well, and Christian had gnocchi. Not bad, especially for the price - we got out for about eight euros per person. Afterward we walked to the train station to work out our trip to Venice. We had no difficulty, but Christian is meeting his cousin, who is going to pick him up and take him to her house for a couple of days. We checked schedules and Christian called her to see what would work out best for her. Then he bought a ticket on the same train as ours. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped for huge Belgian waffles filled with white chocolate or Nutella. Again, Roger and I returned to the hotel after dinner and Christian went out to explore.
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