Saturday October 22, 2011

We skipped walking this morning as we had an early bus ride and knew we were going to get plenty of miles in today as we are having a walking tour of Florence. We drove through some beautiful countryside to get to Florence – rolling hills, vineyards and lots of cedar trees. Florence is one of our favorite cities. We spent three days there on our first trip to Italy and just fell in love with the art, sculpture, architecture and friendliness of the people. Nothing has changed! We had a local guide, Marco, who met us as we departed from the bus. We walked through piazzas (squares) and narrow medieval streets until we came to the Duomo. This is the cathedral of Florence with its famous Brunelleschi’s dome. We also saw the baptistry designed by Giotto with its magnificent doors made by Ghilberti. Michelangelo was so impressed by the doors that he dubbed them “The Gate of Paradise”. We then walked down to the town hall square, Piazza della Signoria, and viewed the replica of Michelangelo’s David (see photo). The original is now inside as over the centuries, it was being damaged from the elements. We also took photos of other sculptures, which were outside the Uffizi, one of the many art museums of Florence. Our next stop was the Ponte Vecchio, which is a famous bridge across the Arno River (see photo). The butchers and tanners used to have shops along the bridge many years ago, but now it is famous for its goldsmiths and jewelry stores. There is an upper floor along the span, which was the passageway for the Medici family. Our next stop was to Santa Croce where we had lunch and were on our own for a few hours until we were to meet the bus. After lunch, we visited the gothic church of Santa Croce. We saw Michelangelo’s tomb as well as Galileo’s. There were many large paintings and frescos in the church and we had a wonderful walk around the interior and out into the courtyard. We saw three weddings today – it seems as if we see at least one whenever we are on a trip. We did a little shopping on some of the small side streets and even managed to have a gelato (ice cream) before having to meet for our walk to the bus. We had two stops on the way back to Chianciano Terme. The first was to Michelangelo’s Garden – a spot that overlooks the whole of Florence (see photo – and note the Duomo with its brick dome). We saw two Lamborghini’s in the parking lot (see photo – this is in honor of you, Dan, sorry it is not lime green, but it was pretty cool!). The other stop was to the Florence/American cemetery, where over 4000 American soldiers and pilots were buried during World War II. It was a miniature Normandy with rows upon rows of white crosses. We got back to our hotel after six and then had dinner as a group right in the hotel. We started with a large buffet of antipasto. Everything was delicious and there were so many things from which to choose! We then had a choice of white or red wine – I chose red for Kelly and Dave had white for Lana. We started to giggle during the salad course. I didn’t want oil and vinegar again so I picked up a small packet of what I thought was salad dressing. We had a really hard time opening it, but I finally discovered that it was to be torn open from the bottom of the packet. I squeezed it onto my salad only to discover that it was mustard! John finally admitted that he had done the same, but with a packet of ketchup! The rest of the dinner was hilarious – the waiter was coming around and serving pasta. I could see that the portions were larger than I wanted so when he got to me, I said piccolo (small) and he said poco (this also means small, but apparently is the proper form for a serving of something). When I repeated poco, he put an additional helping on my plate! I switched plates with Dave so that I could have a smaller one and said grande (large) indicating that he had the larger one. The water came over and put another portion on Dave’s plate. At this point, the whole table was in hysterics! We were laughing so much; we had a hard time eating! I think he knew what was going on and was enjoying himself. When it was time for the main course, sliced turkey in caper sauce, one person at the table said poco and he put a tiny piece of turkey on her plate! Of course, he gave her more when he had served the rest of us. It was really funny! Dessert was tiramisu, which I can’t eat because of the liquor so he brought be a pear and a huge kiwi. I ate what I could and passed the rest around the table. We had a great dinner with lots of laughs! When we got back up to our room, we had a hard time sleeping as someone next to us had the TV on really loud and there was a wedding across the street from the hotel with loud music. I did start to giggle in bed though when I heard the band playing YMCA – it must be the universal party song!