Day 11 - Florence

            We had our nice little breakfast that morning in the Graham’s apartment.  It was lovely for us, but probably not so lovely for them since they felt they had be dressed, pressed, and have their bed made.

            We took the short walk to the baptistery and looked at the Ghiberti’s bronze doors. It was these doors that issued in the Renaissance.  After that, we got in line to climb the dome.  It was an amazing view, first of the inside of the Cathedral, and then second of the city itself.  The inside of the cupola has art that just makes one wonder how anyone could be up that high painting.  The view from the top was amazing and the red tiled roofs are the perfect picture of Florence.  The day was gorgeous. 

Looking over Florence from the Duomo

We spent only a few minutes enjoying the chapel then excited to the piazza lined with artists selling their products.  We enjoyed looking at their art and even purchased a small piece to take home.  Lara had to translate the artist’s technique to Eric which was a very rough translation at best. 

View from the Cupola of the Duomo

After our time at the Duomo we headed to San Lorenzo’s library.  This library was designed by Michelangelo and was awesome; from the staircase that lead into the library, to the reading benches, to the wood work.  What an amazing craftsman Michelangelo was.

            We gave ourselves a little bit of free time to grab lunch at the Mercato Centrale  and then we meet up again to rent bikes and see the rest of Florence on our nifty purple beach cruisers. 

A little treat after our picnic

Don’t get the wrong idea, these were very run down beach cruisers and only cost us $5 to rent for the afternoon.  Lucky for us there were 8 of us so the odds of being hit by a car were 1:8.   We also could just lock all 8 bikes together wherever we wanted without fear someone would take our bike.  This was a great way to speed up our afternoon in the city.  We first road to the Palazzo Vecchio and enjoyed a short visit there.  Then we cruised by where Michelangelo’s home would have been, marked today with a small plaque.  After that we went to the Santa Croce church where Michelangelo might have gone at night to perform disections.   We saw the burial places of Rossini the composer, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, and Galileo.  After our visit to Santa Croce we took our self-guided tour through the city streets, of course we stopped for Gelato first.  Then we crossed the Arno in search of the Piazza Michelangelo. 

Picking up our bikes from the train station

Over looking Florence for Piazza Michelangelo

We climbed to the top of the hill and enjoyed another perfect look of the city, this time with the river and Ponte Vecchio in the foreground.  We made it back to the Galileo science museum with only about 30 minutes to spare so we did the race through version of the tour.  Lucky for us we had time enough to see Galileo’s finger that has been preserved and is on display next to his inventions.

            Before dinner tonight we enjoyed a big shopping spree and loaded up on cheap scarves, leather purses, soccer shirts with a splurge on a leather brief case for Eric.  On our way to dinner we ran into the Sister missionaries in the area and their investigator.  Other than at church it was the only missionaries we saw.  For dinner tonight we had the best dinner of the entire trip.  The food was melt-in-your-mouth good and everyone agreed that their dish was exceptional.   With the exception of the pizza in Naples, this was the only time we walked out of dinner and had no critical comments about part of the meal.  It sounds like we are turning into food critics.  I guess that’s what Italy does to you.  No day would be complete without a night cap of Gelato.  On our way back to the gelateria by the Duomo we poked our head into a chapel that was having an amazing organ concert.  It was relaxing to sit and close our eyes for 15 minutes and listen to someone play this amazing instrument.