Firenze (Florence)

day 11 – giorno undici

We might actually miss waking up to church bells tolling when we go home. This was the view outside our window. We could almost see the top of Brunelleschi’s dome.

Our hopes were high this morning as we ate breakfast and gathered outside the hotel. The Uffizi Gallery is a huge deal in the art world and Mom has studied many of the great works of art that are in the collection there. She was going to be really bummed if we weren’t able to get in. And guess what!? Plans changed, strike was off, and we got to go. And thanks to the wishy washy strike plans, it was way less crowded than it normally would have been. Sarah split the group in two and each group got a great docent who really went in depth on a few particular pieces, explaining details that to the casual looker wouldn’t mean anything. A few of the big names here include Leonardo da Vinci, Caravaggio, Botticelli, and Michelangelo.

Mom was so happy after seeing all those masterpieces. We had the rest of the day free and about a million suggestions of what to do. We joined Tara and wandered from the Uffizi over to see Santa Croce, another beautiful church.

Around the back of Santa Croce was the renowned Florence School of Leather. Lots of beautifully crafted leather goods: belts, purses of all shapes and sizes, jewelry, bookmarks, etc. Mom and I both did a bit of shopping.

Our stomachs were starting to rumble by the time we (I) decided on and completed our purchases. We had passed this little corner restaurant on the way to Santa Croce that Tara used to frequent when she was here so we decided to go back there for lunch. Finding it again was another story. We wound up and down streets for quite a while before finally we spotted it. Cute little restaurant with a fairly basic menu, finally! To make it easy to order, we all got the same thing. Pasta, caprese, and small mixed salad. Perfecto!

After lunch we wanted to get uphill of the city to get a good view so we set off towards the river. On our way, we stopped by Palazzo Vecchio and poked our heads in the door. Such an ornate building. And still in use today as the city hall.

We crossed the river and headed steeply uphill to an old fort from which we got great views of the city. Unfortunately there wasn’t a ton of historical information about the fort.

We were so exhausted on our way back to the hotel, we decided we’d stay in for the rest of the evening. We thought about grabbing a small dinner later but that didn’t happen. We did go down to the bar and get a bottle of Chianti to enjoy in our room though! The waiter even taught me how to properly carry wine glasses – palm up, glasses upside down, stems between pointer/middle and ring/pinky fingers, and thumb on the bottoms to keep the tops from clashing.