Florence! Day 1

Day 1 in Florence - We hit the San Lorenzo street market & Central Market.  

The girls buy bracelets & purses.  It’s fun & we like that it’s no pressure sales compared to what we’re used to in Mexico.  

Reese goes for chic red.

Pink, of course, for Quinn!

Avery chooses a very cool "map purse"

We eat and walk.  And run right into the Cathedral - majestic!

                            

The detail is unbelievable!

Beautiful Reese taking a photo over the Arno

Stunning Piazza della Repubblica!

We wander on and go into the Convento e Museo di San Marco and see tons of works by Fra Angelico, a devout Dominican friar that lived here and painted in the early 1400's.  All the monks' cells have beautiful frescos, many by Fra Angelico!  (better to contemplate the miraculous by)

 This is our kind of cell!

 "Annunciation," one of Fra Angelico's masterpieces

 A little lesson in art appreciation

 Fra Angelico is noted for his depiction of humility and emotion in his subjects

We pre-purchased tickets to enter the Accademia this afternoon at 4:45, so we head there.  

This is going to be awesome!

We plug into our audio tours.  We are music lovers and we head to the collection of musical instruments.

The Stradivari cello from 1690, to the right of Avery.  Those Medici's had some great stuff.

Quinn posing with a 1716 Stratavari violin on the left.

…and here's the man we've all been waiting for….

David.  I remember tearing up the first time I ever saw David and this time - same thing.  I thought I'd kinda be over him, but no.  Turning that corner and looking down the corridor you first catch sight of him, perfectly lit with the natural light filtering through the dome above him - wow.  It's one of those moments in life that can't be captured in photos or videos.  I had my arm around Reese and she literally had to catch her breath.  She gasped, "Mom!  Is that really him?!"  It was awesome.

Hold it - I'm confused, which one is the statue?

It took all our willpower not to purchase this in the gift shop.  (I have regrets)

We head to Ponte Vecchio because we're in the market for some gold chains…

(that was a joke)

Mom & Girls on the Ponte Vecchio

Then we head to Piazza Signoria at sunset to relax in a restaurant on the piazza & people watch for a while.  

Palazzo Vecchio - Was a Medici home before they moved to the Pitti Palace.  Currently, Florence's seat of government.  Famous prisoners were held in a tiny room at the top of the tower.

Our favorite time of day in any town is the evening.  We go back to the room to nap for an hour before heading out to see Florence after dark.

Check out the view from our little hotel.   We didn’t recall reading that it’s a 5th floor walk-up when we reserved it & the “hotel” is just some rooms on the top floor of the building.  The floors below it appear to be apartments.   Our run down, one-floor hotel is right ON the San Lorenzo market, the one thing it has going for it - location.  We can see the vendors canapés from our window & there are bustling cafes and restaurants below.  It’s fun to watch all the activity. 

Dinner hour arrives and through our open window, we hear the chatter of  diners and strollers and the lively evening activity below.    Accordians, guitars & a little brass waft up from the roving bands of street musicians, playing to the diners below busking for tips.   The music fades as they move around the square to more distant restaurants.  It’s charming! 

Our yellow "Hotel" sign is to the left.  Our window can't be seen in this pic - it's a few floors above the green shuttered window to the upper, far left.

We go out and join the activity we heard from our room.  We have an excellent dinner right below our room at, “Osteria Pepo’.”

We stroll around & catch the end of the Uraguay-Columbia match (Reese has a huge and sometimes inconvenient need to watch most of the games).  It’s fun with all the fans representing their countries in full colors, waving flags and cheering and/or cursing.

We head back up to our little room.  And it’s hot.  We open the window.  We figure out the bizarre a/c unit perched up on the wall as best we can.  It works…. a little bit…. Occasionally.

Okay now it’s 1 a.m and it’s still really hot in our 5^th floor walk up.  The a/c unit – it’s a cruel joke.  For one thing, it moves a lot when it decides to go into “cooling” mode – kinda like sliders on a motor home.  Then it wheezes out a bit of semi-coolish air…. But only for about 90 seconds.  Then the vents creak and groan shut and it pulls in and it goes silent… for about 90 seconds.  Then it gives a chipper and highly informative, “BEEP!” to alert us that it’s going to start up again, followed by a repeat of the vents creaking and groaning back open & the wheezing out another minute of slightly-cooler-than-our-room air.  This cycle is not conducive to sleep.  So we have to leave our one window wide open to try to cool the room.  Remember those charming street sounds I was describing earlier?  Not at all charming now.  Municipal vehicals backing up with the beep, beep, beep.  Dogs barking.  People YACKING.  I’m beginning to see how the inspiration for the laws of physics sprung from here.  I, myself, am contemplating in great detail how sound travels with incredible clarity over long distances.  I can hear every syllable those people waaaay across the square are saying at what seems like a normal speaking volume.  The cracks of laughter & occasional shouts, well it’s just loud.  Ugh.  After resisting for way too long, I have to close the window and see what happens.   It’s about 2:25 a.m.   Maybe sweat off a few pounds, which at this point in the trip, would be a good thing.