Florence

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(Friday March 12) We made it out of San G! HUGE thank you to Grazia, Bruno, Nina and everyone at Torracia di Chiusi for making our stay very cozy despite the weather. It is such a great place -- the people are great and Bruno's food is amazing!

We left the farm yesterday and headed to Florence. No snow in Florence but it is FREEZING here. The locals tell us it's very unusual weather for this time of the year. Seems like wherever we go it's always "unusual weather." I'm beginning to think it's us...

Before the Italy trip I went on a diet and lost about 15 pounds by cutting out cheese, bread, pasta and wine. How ironic that all of our meals here in Italy (seriously - all of them, including breakfast) include -- you guessed it -- cheese, bread, pasta and wine. Okay, not so much wine at breakfast (only sometimes). We've also had some form of either prosciutto or salami at each meal. How do Italians stay so thin? This is the best food ever. Scott managed to find us a roasted chicken at the grocery store. Our arteries were so relieved.

Today we finally tried gelato! We stopped at Vivoli near Piazza Santa Croce, a gelato place recommended by Josh Lipp. Even though it was very cold outside we had to try it -- heaven! I had lemon; Scott tried the triple chocolate. We're adding gelato as a 5th food group to our daily Italian diet.

I did some shopping at Il Fiorino gold shop (!!) recommended by Sherry Hilliard. Couldn't resist making a few small purchases :-) Great stuff; great prices.

Sights seen were the Duomo, the Ponte Vecchio, the fake David outside the Uffizi in Piazza Della Signoria, and Donatello's 2 Davids at the Bargello gallery. Italians sure like their Davids. Maybe that's why Beckham is back. We haven't seen Michelangelo's original David yet - we will go to the Accademia Gallery tomorrow to see it. We also tried to get into the Uffizi today. Instead of the long lines we were expecting, there were no lines because the Uffizi was closed due to a national strike! We have such great timing.

We also visited the Chiesa de Santa Croce, which houses the tombs of Galileo, Michelangelo, Machiavelli and others. Galileo spent the last few years of his life under house arrest and branded a heretic for defying the church by saying that the earth revolved around the sun. Many years after he died -- when they found out that he was right -- they moved his body to this church.

We'll be in Florence until Sunday. Then we're off to the Cinque Terra...

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Photos

Grappa!
We had to try it - we shared the bottle with several other people...we did not drink 1/2 the bottle ourselves. No really.

Duomo Square
Rainy but still pretty.

Filling Up
Florence - like Rome and other Italinan cities - has public water fountains with very good, filtered water. There is even a fountain in Florence (not this one) that dispenses sparkling water! How Italian :-)

Denied
I love how it says that it will "probably" be closed. I think a lawyer wrote this.

Galileo's Tomb
I guess they made up for arresting him...

Comments

[Karen]

Winter in Italy
Don't feel bad about the weather, it is unusually cold at home as well. The way I see it, you have a great excuse to go buy a fabulous Italian leather coat to keep you warm :)