We arrived very tired and our rooms were a welcome sight at The Market Urban Hotel. The most efficient rooms possible — a small closet behind each side of the bed. This is actually Melissa and Karl’s room. Ours was similar but with black bathroom toilet, etc.
On our first full day in Florence, we had skip-the-line tickets for the Uffiizi Gallery. We saw a bunch of 14-15 century art – all of which is religious art.
To amuse ourselves, we started noticing the strange and unusual ways that the infant Jesus was portrayed. On the first one we noticed, Jesus looked like a full adult and had a six-pack! Other amusements included the friars’ hairlines.
Finally, we arrived at the main attraction – Michelangelo’s David. My fourth time to see it but it is still a wonder!!
We then walked to the Duomo of Florence, a beautiful cathedral covered in gorgeous white, green and pink marble. It is so wonderful to see from the outside. John also got us tickets into the Campanile and the Baptistry as well.
Lunch time – the best capresee salad ever…..plus a calzone of ham and cheese, of course!
Remembering that afternoon is sort of a blur, so straight to dinner at an Indian Restaurant. It was very good and we tried some new things that none of us had had before.
On the next morning, Melissa, Karl, Michael joined us to spend the day tasting Chianti Classicos in the Chianti region just south of Florence. Giovanni, the front desk person at our hotel, wrote out an itinerary for us since some of our choices were full — it was the feast of Saint Giovanni, patron saint of Florence, the weekend we were there.
Anyway. it was not just the normal July tourist crowd — much more. Our first stop, and decidedly the fanciest, was the Antinori Winery. It was also beautiful and VERY informative. It was updated in 2012 at a cost of $85 million euros.
We next visited a small, lovely family-run for several generations, vineyard named Montefioralle. Quite a contrast from Antinori. We had a very light lunch with our wine tasting outdoors at a table shaded by a canopy. It was a beautiful place!
And our final stop of the day was at Vichiomaggio…..also a small vineyard with a ton of charm and beautiful views. We had to taste inside but could drink our last glass outside on the patio.
Meanwhile, the rest of our group took a train to Pisa for the day to see the leaning tower.
Afterward we all went to Trattoria Ponte Vecchio to have dinner and watch the sunset over the Ponte Vecchio.
John and I did not do much on our last day — except meeting my friend Terry Cummins and her husband John for lunch back at the Chinese restaurant. Terry was my high school classmate and my freshman year roommate at Marquette. They had been in Greece and then Rome and had just arrived in Florence on their way to a house which they had rented to share with their children about 50 miles west of Florence. A sad story: her older son was in Rome, while her extra-organized son was to fly in that day with wife and three youngish children. Their flight was cancelled after or on their way to the airport (Friday) and they could not get out until Monday…..which did become Sunday. Can you imagine being all packed with three kids and getting stuck like that? Worse, he had bought skip-the-line tickets for several events for over the weekend. That really sucks because there would be no reimbursement for that!!!! Anyway, here is a picture of Terry and John taken in Greece because I forgot to take one at lunch (imagine that?).
The rest of the family started the day with a laundry visit, met for lunch, walked to various places and some more climbed up the Campanile.
We did have a lovely dinner all together that night at Trattoria ZaZa.
Kathryn had packed her shoebox of contraband earlier that day — her collection of “borrowed” items.
On the way home I had an accident; I carelessly went off the curb at an angle and messed up the gears in the front wheel. It resulted in this:
The man on the left had just walked out of a restaurant behind me and was a biking expert, and the man behind him owned the shop across the start where Karl had shopped earlier. They got the wheel off and “sort of” fixed it. And that was “sort of” a sorry end to Florence. Onward!
Love,
Beth
Beth's Blogs 
I was told that those ugly apartment buildings in Bucharest are called, “Commie Condos”…..😂
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