March 23, 2011 Wednesday

Today we made the trek to Galleria Dell Academia. The main draw was The David, and there were additional impressive statues by Michaelangelo and others, as well as paintings and musical instruments. I have to say, if I had seen only The David, I would have been satisfied. It is beautiful and amazing. The patience it would take to complete something so perfect is beyond my comprehension. Afterwards, being so near one of the five geleterias we were determined to experience, we stopped at Carabé on Via Ricasoli for another double picolo.

I wanted info on trains and buses, so we used our map to walk to the train station. En route, we happened on a market with clothing, leather, trinkets outdoors and food indoors, similar to the Eastern Market/flea market in Washington, D.C. on a much larger scale. The indoor market had beef, fish, chicken, plenty of tripe and boar meat, plus wine, balsamic vinegar and olive oil, candy, strings of garlic bulbs and dried pasta. Committed to my carry-on status, I ignored it all except for some hard candies to subdue my cough, and some fresh pasta for tonight's dinner, but it was tempting.

After a lunch break at one of the stands of hot pasta, we found both the train and bus station, mostly due to Tenar's map-reading ability. We got some sketchy but adequate information for our future trips, then decided to make a circular journey to see some of the remaining piazzas, beginning with San Giovanni, because it had yet another on our list of best gelato places. Because we were taking a day trip out of town the next day, we knew we would have to double up on geleterias one of our days in Florence in order to hit all five. This seemed as good a day as any. We went to Grom, on the corner of Via del Camponile and Via Dell Oche. From there, we visited Plazza dell' Repubblica, where Tenar rode on a carousel, Plazza Strazzi where we decided not to go to a Dali/Picasso exhibit, Plazza Davanzati, and the Old Market, which became the New Market, (no food at this one) near the river, also known as The Piglet (Il Porcellino), because of the bronze statue of a wild boar on the southern side. Local legend has it that rubbing the boar's snout will ensure your return to Florence, so we did.

Since I was still feeling way worse than mediocre, we went home via Ponte Grazie, where we cooked our fresh tortelini and gnocchi, then called it a day.