Florence is Fun

I actually did not look forward to Florence, as it seemed that the real trip was over (walking through Tuscany). That was silly. Florence has been wonderful. It is so lively and interesting. We did try to see the David (trying to take your advice, Jessy), but were thwarted by the Italian schedule. We also tried to visit the Uffizi, a must-see museum (I finally figured out how to use a hyphen on this keyboard). However, again, we were thwarted. We went instead to the Pitti Palace and it was wonderful. We saw lots of Raphael paintings as well as many other masterpiece works. Our visit yesterday to the Duomo museum was something special as well. We saw a Michaelangelo work that was truly stunning. And lots of Donetello (not sure of spelling, but the first four letters of the way I spelled it pretty much sum up how I feel about statues at this point).

For the rest of today, our last day, we are walking around and soaking in Florence. Oh yes, we have shopped. I even bought shoes, if you can imagine. Betsy bought a pocketbook and gloves. We will probably buy more as we have some euros that need to be spent before we get on the plane tomorrow.

Tonight we are going to have an upscale dinner. We will see how that goes.

Kim

Florence has a food market that is open each morning. If you can imagine, mounds and mounds of baby artichokes, carrots with fresh greens, the reddest, most beautiful tomatoes, fat and skinny asparagus, fresh pasta in all shapes and colors, counters filled with meats, and little restaurants that serve the food that is sold. We ate there for lunch. I had gnocchi with pumpkin and shrimp sauce, while Kim had tagliatelle with asparagus sauce. They serve only what is in season. It was positively delicious. Oh, I did forget that while we were in Siena, we enjoyed tiramisu while sitting on Il Campo. Wowee. That was great. And so was the tiramisu gelato I had yesterday. Yumbola.
We were over across the river last night and it began pouring down rain. We ran back across the vecchio (which is lined with one jewelry store after another — stunning!) and found ourselves walking into a little ristauranti where the cook was making pizza in a wood-fired oven. We had pasta there, too, and it was delicious! I am going to hate it when Dr. Oz re-enters the picture and there is no more enriched flour.

I love Florence. It was wonderful. We have tried to soak as much in as possible, but that is so difficult in just 3 days.
I love Italy. This will likely be the last post. We leave tomorrow.
ciao…
betsy