Firenze

We arrived yesterday in Florence, the weather is warm, probably about 75 and the air everywhere is heavily scented with Jasmine. Our hotel is on the south shore of the Arno, and if we were not surrrounded by trees wwe would be looking straight across from the balcony of our room to the Uffizi, and we are just East of the Ponte Vecchio. Mary rested and visited with a friend we have met on the trip, and I took a long walk, getting back just in time to change and go to the dinner our guide had arranged at a local Trattoria - courses of pasta, beans and roast pork. I would have been back sooner but managed to get onto the outside of the huge ancient wall that once surrounded all of Florence...so I had to walk the length of it until I finally found a huge wood and iron gate through, finding myself in a maze of houses shops dating from the middle ages.

Today Mary and I hired a car and driver for the day, who took us up to the overlook at the Michelangelo plaza, home to the first of two "fake" David's....and then we drove to the Romanesque church at San Mineto, the second oldest in Florence. The Cemetary contains the tomb of the "father" of Pinocchio, but I was unable to determine which one - I should have paid more attention to the name, as there was no puppet engraved on the tomb to alert me as I had hoped.

Giorgio, our driver, then took us to the Ferragamo museum so that Mary could give homage to her Patron Saint. It was actually quite interesting, having the shoe-lasts to virtually every famous woman and man in film and the last century of history as well as a sampling of a lot of bizarre shoes made by the famous shop.

We then traveled to the Palazzo Strozzi, where an excellent Cezanne exhibit was on display - we had read about it at home and planned on seeing it when here.

From there it was on to the church of San Croce, and sat through about half of the mass in Italian next to the tombs of Machiavelli, Gallileo, Marconi,Dante and Michelangelo. It was obviously moving and inspiring. We found Giorgio again and stopped for sandwiches (the bread and tomatoes here are worth the stop) and ate while circling the Duomo in our Mercedes...it was very Royal to drive through the unwashed masses, munching and swigging. We had planned on stopping but the lines were just too prohibitive so decided to go on to the Uffizi. We met our guide there in Signora square, in front of the second "fake" David, and toured the Uffizi's collections which include Botticelli's Venus and Three Graces.

From there, Giorgio drove us to the Accademia, where the "real" David lives. I do have to comment to the fact that having seen copies all your life does not give you any hint as to the effect of the original - somehow it cannot be copied. There too were the unfinished "slaves" that Michelangelo left - it was pretty incredible.

Tomorrow we have a reservation for a tour of the Bargello, then probably will go to the Pitti Palace and the Boboli Gardens. And we will eat more sanwiches, of course. And pasta.

We now are sitting on the terrace at the hotel, just letting our feet catch up with us, and will find a nice quiet spot for dinner. It has been quite a day -