Finally Florence

We arrived in a downpour after an hour of negotiating the traffic through the city. It was one of the frustrating drives where the GPS tells you to go one way and the city/construction signs tell you to go another.

But the next morning we awoke to this...

they gray clouds quickly moved out and there were only blue skies from then on.

Our first morning we visited the Pitti Palace. There was a special exhibit of gorgeous designer gowns from the 1700-2000. There was so much eye candy to behold and each display mixed the era of the dresses so we would try and guess the dates before looking at the dates, designers, and so forth. After so much exquisite displays you can only imagine my shock when we entered a room to see this.....

It looked like a tray of dead babies. It was so bizarre I couldn't pass up a photo op an of course share it with you all.

We then moved out of doors into the gardens. These were definitely designed before the day of wheel chair access. Luckily Graham was in the mood to walk, at least at first. It took a bit of prodding to get him up the hill but when we got there we weren't disappointed.

There was also a porcelain museum with beautiful dish sets from around the world and a display of "extremely modern" tea pots and other things from a local artist. Graham loved the little porcelain girl pouring tea.....she was just his size.
Then there was a little boys dream, mud and a fountain full of frogs.
After a very long stroll through the grounds we headed out to find some lunch.

Marjory's guide book gave recommendations for good eats in each zone of the city. Because it was Sunday many of the options it suggested were closed. I then noticed a rotisserie place and decided to step in. Everyone in there was Italian, there were no tourists so we decided to try it out and we weren't disappointed. Then Marjory just happen to flip through her book while waiting for our food to come and she said one place is open today. When I looked at it I said, "Guess what? That's where we are." We just happened upon a winner. After that we stuck with the book and were NEVER disappointed. The only bad meal we ate the entire trip was a place of our choosing. We were trying to avoid a restaurant that caters to tour groups as in our experience they are never good. So as we tried to avoid this one particular restaurant we moved down the street a little further. The only problem was that unbeknownst to us it was a different entrance to the same place.

We then did a bit of window shopping in the Ponte Vecchio area, built in 1345.

These gold shops were once used as slaughter houses. The ruling Medicci family didn't care for the smell as they passed from their palace to other places in the city so they built a walkway above so they could pass without being seen. Then eventually they kicked out the meat vendors and brought in the jewelers. Also during WWII, Hitler specifically asked that this bridge not be destroyed as they were bombing all the others. He did damage the ends to make it unusable but thankfully saved this spot.....

...which leads right into Piazza della Signori.

More to come...