Day 13 - Florence

Had breakfast at the hotel in Florence. Then we met up with a local guide at 8:30 and toured the Uffizi Gallery. This is the most famous Renaissance art gallery in the world. We saw things by Leonardo Da Vinci, Botticelli, Rafael, Titian, and more. There were paintings dating back to the 1200’s. It’s pretty unbelievable that these things still look so good.

After touring the gallery, we walked around Florence and crossed the Ponte Vecchio Bridge (a bridge over the Arno River). This bridge is lined on both sides with gold jewelry shops. Besides art, Florence is famous for leather goods and gold jewelry. Gary, Jamie, and I ate lunch at a little place called the Pitti Café. We had sandwiches with prosciutto, mozarella, lettuce and tomato on some really good bread. That was only 3 euros, not bad, but we made the mistake of not paying attention to the drink prices and ordered a medium coke for 6 euros (about $9!!). Oh well. It was a tasty lunch, though, and a nice place to sit down and rest with no table cover charge. Most restaurants in Italy have coperto, which is a table cover charge. You leave just a very minimal tip, but there is the coperto at most places.

We walked on to the Boboli Gardens and toured that. These are gardens that take you up to the top of a high hill where you can look out over Florence, as well as the Tuscan countryside. Very pretty! It made me wish that we were staying out in the country instead of in the city. It just looks like what you see in movies, such as “Under the Tuscan Sun.” Up on the top of the hill, there were about 15 girls, each with and easle set up, painting the scenery. They were studying abroad for the fall semester from all over the states. We talked to a couple of them and they were from New Jersey and Connecticutt. They were really loving Florence so far. We enjoyed the gardens because it was a nice change to get out of the crowded, bustling city atmosphere and hang out in a park-like setting. We probably spent an hour and half or two there.

We headed back to the hotel to rest up for a while. Then headed back out in the evening and walked thorugh the Mercado Centrale. This is an outdoor market where they sell leather purses and coats, scarves, a few shoes, ties, and other things. Gary was trying on a leather coat and the salesman told him to walk up the street to their store to get other sizes, so we walked up there. It was only about a one minute walk. Then, as we were about halfway to the store, we heard all this running and yelling behind us coming towards us from the direction of the market. We turned around and there were all these counterfeit purse guys running down the street with their purses, full speed, with the Florence police running after them. We jumped out of the street and up into the doorway of a store, although it turns out, we really didn’t need to because they stopped running just before getting to where we were. The salesman had also jumped out of the way, though, so I guess it was the thing to do! He said it happens every day. The cops pretty much just chased them out of the market, grabbing a few of their purses before they could run away. As soon as the cops quit chasing them and turned around to leave, those guys went right back to the market with the purses they had left. Gary tried on a few coats, but didn’t end up buying one.

We started looking for a place to eat and decided to eat at the same place we had eaten with the group the night before. I know they eat late in Italy, but thought that 6:10 might be late enough. It wasn’t, so we had to kill time until 7:00. We hit a few more stores (didn’t buy anything) and then sat in a square (Santa Maria Novella) and watched people. We met a family from Winnipeg, Canada, because the guy had on a Harley Davidson Firenze t-shirt (Firenze is Italian for Florence). We asked where the Harley store was and he told us, but he also told as the a t-shirt costs 39 euros (about $60!). We didn’t bother seeking out the Harley store. There was a set of little triplet boys probably about a year and a half old running all around the square and they kept us entertained most of the time. At one point, they were all licking a bench. The mother was really thrilled about this! They reminded me of Brad and Brett (Gary’s twin nephews for people who aren’t familiar with everyone) when they were little, except with one extra! At a little after 7:00, we went back to the restaurant and were just looking at menus when most of the group showed up there, also, so a couple people joined us at our table. The place filled up with two more Rick Steves groups and a few non-Rick Steves people. I had the gnocchi and then a roasted sea bass with peas. They brought my fish to the table intact. A whole fish - head, tail and everything. I was a little concerned (ok - a lot!) but then before the waitress served it onto the table, she cut the head and tail off and filleted it, placing the meat onto another plate. I guess they bring the whole fish out so you can see that you are getting a fresh fish and not some frozen pieces. It was pretty cool and I was SO happy to see that she was handling this! J That fish was awesome! (And I didn’t have to cut off the head and tail! Yay!) Gary had ravioli and chicken cacciatore. We then headed to Grom gelato place, which is written up by Rick Steves as the supreme gelato place in Florence. Well, I guess I have to say that I prefer the non-quality gelato. I got the dark chocolate gelato and it was just too chocolatey if there is such a thing.

We headed back to the hotel at this point, finally figured out how to use the phone card we had bought and called some folks back home and then hit the sack to get some sleep before heading to Rome the next day.