Our train arrived in Florence around 9:00 p.m., just in time to get the party started with Nick and Annie. It was so nice seeing familiar faces and someone speaking English :)
They took us on a little night tour of Florence and we saw a few of the classic sites.
We had the best gelato of the trip at this tiny local joint. Ben's favorite was mint, from fresh mint leaves. N and A live up in the hills overlooking the city with the most beautiful scenery. It took us awhile to catch a bus back to their place and we had a late bedtime around 2 a.m. that night!
The next morning we caught the bus back down to the Academia. We got to skip the line because of baby girl in-utero and enjoyed Annie's tour and expertise of art work and sculptures. She knew about the different styles of art periods and made it fun to learn. The David was taller than I remember with such perfection on his entire body. It is incredible. Ben liked learning about how people make sculptures with wax/clay models. He said he'd be happy if he looked like David :)
The next morning we caught the bus back down to the Academia. We got to skip the line because of baby girl in-utero and enjoyed Annie's tour and expertise of art work and sculptures. She knew about the different styles of art periods and made it fun to learn. The David was taller than I remember with such perfection on his entire body. It is incredible. Ben liked learning about how people make sculptures with wax/clay models. He said he'd be happy if he looked like David :)
Then we went to the market. There were more vendors and booths than I remember. Ben searched for the perfect man purse briefcase. He found the style he liked so we searched, bargained and fought hard. We got the seller down 50 euro which was not bad for the real leather inside and out. I probably should have bought more at the market but I was pooped after bartering for 20 minutes getting Ben's bag.
Next we headed to lunch. Annie had seen a place on her way to work that is always busy, so we decided to give it a try. Pangies. YUM! Ben wanted Italian pasta and it was the perfect place. It was a small joint with about six tables owned by a husband and wife. The pasta was reasonably priced at under 10 euros a plate. Ben got spinach and cheese ravioli and I got a lasagna with meat sauce. It was delicious, cheesy and had a yellow cream sauce. We shared a brushetta with cheese and raw sausage on top. It was divine but I was nervous with the meat and cheese for the baby. They also served Tuscan style bread with no salt added, just spongy and almost tasteless.
From there we headed to Ponte Veccio bridge, took some pics and got a Pinocchio ornament. It was a beautiful sunny day at 80 degrees. We climbed to the top of the hill de Michaelangelo. The view was breathtaking and you could see for miles across the hills. I love the green and pink color of the Duomo and church. It's interesting how that was the style to decorate the outside of the building very fancy and leave the inside more open space and less ornate.
We climbed down, along the river and came to the duomo where they had a Medicci festival/parade going on with the priest outside the front doors. We looked inside the church for a bit and stopped by another one the N and A had been to. The outside looked merely like a building but the inside was ornate and beautiful. We also went inside the church of San Lorenzo that had a Donatello bronze pulpit. Then we headed back up to Fiesole, the city where N and A live. The view with the sun beginning to set was gorgeous, overlooking the city and countryside. We saw a few Roman ruins around their streets and a 1400 a.d. monk monastery where we looked in the living quarters.
Annie made us dinner, including a delicious pasta carbonara. We sat on their terrace on the roof of their apartment. It was a romantic dinner for 4. It began to get dark and we went inside for a bit before going out for one last Italian gelato. I had hazelnut YUM and nutella and Ben got "cookies" and mint chocolate. We made our plan for the next morning and hit the sack!
We woke up around 6:30 to catch the 7:00 bus to get to the train station at 7:30 a.m. We said farewell and headed to Bologna where we had our flight to catch back to London. We took RyanAir to London Stansted. No complaints about RyanAir this time, other than making sure our bags were the correct weight and getting to the airport early enough. We had long passport lines and finally caught a Terravision bus back to Victoria station in downtown London. After a few frustrating details we finally caught bus #11 to our last B and B house.
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