March 22, 2011 Tuesday

A lot of walking today, or seemed so, because I still have this blasted cold. We were out of the apartment by 10:00am. Carlo didn't supply us with a map as Claudio had done, so our first mission was to find one. The newsstands didn't carry them, so I tried a hotel and sure enough, they gave us one. Now we are free, strong and empowered, ready to take on the city of Firenze. First we went to the Uffize Gallery to reserve/purchase an admission time for 1:00 pm. We then headed to the Galleria Academia to do the same for tickets tomorrow, however on the way, we "bumped into" the Duomo. That it is called breath-taking is not an exaggeration. The structure covers a couple of city blocks and has a facade of pink, white and green marble, with a large red-tiled dome. I'm sure we'll climb that another day, and today we headed for the campanile, the 82m bell tower with 414 steps to the top. Though this is fewer steps than to the dome of St. Peter's Basilica, the climb was harder for me. I know it was partly the fact that the climb for the campanile was straight up, and I think my cold affected my stamina too.

After the climb that made me wish I'd given all my financial information to my son before I'd left the country, we found our way to the Academia and reserved our spots for 10:15 am the next morning. Then we meandered back through the streets (there is no other way than to meander - no streets go directly to anywhere else in Florence) to the Uffizi Gallery. We got the audio guides, which gave Tenar more information than I possibly could, and saw some beautiful, some interesting, and some "once is enough" paintings. I've always been a fan of Rembrandt, and was happy to see some of his works, as well as Da Vinci, Giotto, Boticelli and Michaelangelo. We left the Uffizi at 3:30, feeling quite educated, thirsty and hungry, realizing we had skipped lunch. We stopped at the closest pizzeria and had a Napoli, which was an anchovy and caper pizza. My grandson likes anchovies. How lucky am I? Then I found the page in the guidebook with the top five top gelaterie in Florence, so we continued our charter of tasting the best gelato in Italy. We headed for the closest, called Geleteria die Neri on the via de' Neri. They were touted to have a gorgonzola flavor, but that turned out to be a summer offering only. Nevertheless, what I had was good. I don't remember the flavors. I can only say that while some impress me more than others, I haven't met a flavor yet that I would reject. Happy with our cones, we headed west on a hunt for the hand-puppet store. We found it just west of Ponte Santa Trinita on Via del Parione. It is the most adorable little store run by a woman who makes everything in it; not only hand puppets, but jesters and clowns with wonderful ceramic heads, and pillows with animal appendages and faces.

Then down to the river, across the Ponte Santa Trinita bridge, and home to our apartment, sight-seeing all the way, of course. I was not feeling especially well and my cold was getting worse (long coughing spells, plugged ears), so I opted for bread and cheese from the market for dinner. The cheese was good, the bread horrible, but Tenar was a trooper, not seeming to mind at all the meager meal. And so, good night.