October 30, 2010 Saturday in Florence

I woke up Saturday morning to the birds chirping loudly in the Tuscan countryside. The weather reports all said upper 60's and sunshine for Saturday in Florence. However, when I got up to check out the birds singing to us, the sky said  dark cloud cover, and the air temps said cold. Why do I read the weather reports? Then Eric said he wasn't feeling so good and I was worried our day was off to a rough start. I think the over indulgence of magical pizza and smooth red wine so late at night was not sitting to well for him. We layered up for the day and headed down to the breakfast room where we had a wonderful buffet breakfast. I cannot believe the number of calories I continue to pack in. I lost all sense of watching what I eat since I left home. Sure I'll have two giant pastries for breakfast with bread and olive oil and fruit and juice and and and..... What is wrong with me, I just had a half bottle of wine a whole pizza and a thousand calorie chocolate dessert late the night before. That scale is dangerously awaiting my return. But it is all so good.

We caught the bus into Florence for the day and wandered through this old, historic city. Our first stop was the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella. This is very near the train station.

Our next stop was the Duomo. This basilica is one of Italy's largest, and the dome is the largest brick dome in the world. This was beautiful and huge. We were able to get inside and look around at the beautiful painted dome and stained glass windows.

Eric and I at the front door entrance of the Duomo. Incredible.

We walked all the way around the Duomo and enjoyed the Piazza Duomo. Of course being in Italy and all, we had to have some gelato. It was a bit chilly for it, but worth it. So good!

The dome from one of the many alley's. We walked the alley's of Florence and enjoyed the many surprises around each corner. Taylor and I were constantly distracted by the many, many shops everywhere. Leather, leather everywhere!

We came upon the open air market of San Lorenzo where Taylor and I got sucked in, in a big way. We spent lots of time shopping the rows of booths and made some fun gift purchases for some special people back home. I think you will be pleased Robin! Oh and Eric has become a scarf wearing European now! He wasn't going to do it but he looks so good. We all got new scarves. We also wandered into the cast iron constructed indoor San Lorenzo market where many shops are located, selling fresh food products, many of them specialties from the Tuscan countryside. We saw some very unusual meat items, not to sure about those.

We warmed ourselves with a real Italian spaghetti dish with red wine for lunch. It felt good to sit down, warm up and chow on this delicious pasta! Ah, spaghetti in Italy! Do I have to tell you it was superb.

After lunch we did some more aimless wandering and came upon the Palazzo Vecchio where there were many statues including a copy of Michelangelo's David. Every where you turn there is history and art in this city and it is easy to go with no plan and just wander to see the sights.

This is Ponte Vecchio, the first, which makes it the oldest bridge in the city. It was really something. It was a bridge of jewelry shops.

The shops sparkled brightly with lights, and every girl's best friend. I had no idea this was here, but it was very crowded. It would have been fun to purchase a little souvenir but how would you ever decide?

From here we found a bus stop for our route and headed back to Fattoria Settemerli to warm up and get ready for dinner. The owner was there when we came in and she gave us some history on the old farm house. Really interesting. We then went back to Galluzzo to another little pizzeria for dinner. The pizza was again amazing and we had a Tuscan speciality of dips and bread with it. We had ice cream desserts and noticed both nights out, that everyone around us would finish their meals with what looked like a shot. It was Grappa a very high % alcohol drink (70 to 120 US proof) only produced in Italy. It is made from the leftovers of winemaking and is used as an after dinner drink to help digest heavy meals. We also saw lots of  limoncello, which is also a strong alcohol content after dinner drink made in Southern Italy. It looked really good. Taylor and I decided our last night here we would each try one.