Florence

We arrived in Florence and found our accommodations at Hotel Savonarola to be much lovelier than we expected for a discount hotel! The room has tall ceilings, lovely yellow curtains that hang down the tall old fashioned windows, a little sitting area, super comfy bed, and... air conditioning! Thank goodness for air conditioning. It has been in the mid 30s every day, and our Canadian bodies have trouble adjusting! Interestingly, it is also a fully accessible room with a walk-in shower.

On our first evening in Florence, we wandered around downtown. We found the first orphanage in Europe, with lovely blue roundels depicting the orphaned children. In one church, we found a free concerto... which included an adorable clergyman conducting a little choir and a talented soloist. In the evening, we walked up to the top of Piazzale Michelangelo to see the view over Florence. It is a stunning view, especially as the sun was setting. It was also a nice way to get our bearings as it was easy to pick out all of the major landmarks from the hilltop.

We found the most excellent gelato shops - La Carraia. It has every flavour of delicious gelato, is affordable, and was a perfect way to cool down after a lot of walking! Yesterday's dark chocolate flavour is the richest chocolate I've ever tasted, and today's mix of lemon, cheesecake, and chocolate mousse flavours was the perfect blend of sweetness and freshness.

Waking up the next morning, we walked straight to the Accademia where we felt rather fortunate to have purchased tickets in advance as the line stretches far down the street. We sat near Michelangelo's David and listened to an interesting audioguide that I'd downloaded on my phone before we left. Michelangelo's Prisoners in the hall leading up to David were fascinating and really showed the virtuoso brilliance in his freehand artistic process. David was of course beautiful. In the adjacent room, we saw Giambologna's Rape of the Sabine Woman - an incredible sculpture that Giambologna originally intended as merely an exercise demonstrating how three figures could be cut from a single marble stone. In another room of the gallery, we found the first upright piano!

We considered visiting the Duomo, but the line wrapped around the church and into the square, so we went to the Bargello museum instead. It is a lovely museum full of lovely sculptures. We decided we would visit the Duomo at 6pm for mass to both avoid the long lines and also appreciate the cathedral in the way in the context it was designed for. The guards outside were quite imposing and gave the suggestion that the church was closed. Fortunately, Jeremy knew how to say "posso entrare per messe" (Is it possible to enter for mass?) and we were allowed in. It struck me as sad that while thousands of people had visited the church during the day, there were only a handful of people attending the actual service. It was of course conducted in Italian, but we were able to recognize references to "I am the way, the truth, and the life" and a few other familiar parts of the service.

For dinner, we ate mozzarella. So much mozzarella. We found a great marketplace with lots of vendors, and one vendor wisely offered us samples. We bought a mozzarella and tomato shishkebab, and then we bought another one because it was amazing.

We ended the day reading by a lovely manmade lake with a large fountain. It was a great place to watch the last touches of colour from the sunset fade.

Jer endeavouring to take the Anneke pose

The original Anneke pose