After taking a nap yesterday afternoon I got my energy back and we walked back down to the main city area for dinner. Found a great place to eat with fun service. I had vegetable soup and chicken. They served the chicken in slices and leaned up a pile of arugula with fresh shaved Parmesan cheese with a drizzle of reduced Balsamic Vinegar. It was amazing! Ended the day with over 21,000 steps!
Got up and at it early this morning. We were out of our room and at breakfast before 8:00 this morning. I sent a bag of clothes to be laundered. They just returned my laundry. I am good to go for the rest of the trip now without having to wash out clothes in the sink.
After a breakfast of cheese, eggs and an orange we headed out. We didn’t use any buses today so spent the day walking again. We first went to Duomo: the religious center of the city and it’s museum. It was hard to find the ticket line but we walked all around the church which is almost a full city block big and finally got tickets and went to the bell tower. It has 414 steps. I walked up a few of them and decided if I wanted to be able to do lots of walking today I wasn’t going to the top. Nicole made it though. She said her knees felt like gelato by the time she was done. Glad I turned around. We went into the museum and toured it. The church was closed for some reason. The grounds around it were relaxing and it wasn’t crowded inside.
Next we attempted to go to the Uffizi Gallery but the line was way too long and it was sprinkling and we decided not to wait. Instead we went into the Galileo Museum which was right next door. It was cool! Impressive instruments in it and to think they were mostly from the 16th and 17th century.
We had lunch afterwards to wait out the rain. I had vegetable soup and a grilled chicken breast. It was OK and on plan.
We found the Ponte Vecchio bridge and walked halfway across it. It had a beautiful view of the river Fiume and lots of shops to see. I had forgotten about Italian leather. There are leather shops everywhere full of beautiful coats and purses.
We waited almost an hour in line to get into the Academia to see Michelangelo’s David. Well worth the wait! It was magnificent.
Our last museum was the DaVinci museum. That man was a genius! He wrote in a mirror reverse script. There were several things in it I would have loved to brought home with me.
Saw lots of little plazas full of beautiful flowers and old statues. It sprinkled on us for quite a bit this morning but the sun came out this afternoon. Started sprinkling again on our walk back to the hotel.
I took a nap again and then we went out for dinner. We ate where we had lunch yesterday. I had a salad and grilled veggies with a warm hunk of cheese. Satisfying!
Tomorrow we booked tickets to go on The Best of Tuscany Tour. We meet up with the group at 8:15 in the morning by the train station which is three minutes from our hotel. We will visit Siena, have a Tuscan lunch at a Chianti vineyard that includes a wine tasting lesson, go to San Gimignano and Pisa in the afternoon. We got tickets to climb the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We should get back to our hotel around 8:30 tomorrow night. At each city we will be given free time to walk around and enjoy the sights. It will be fun to get out and see some of the countryside.
I really like Florence. It has a more intimate feel to it than Rome did. Easy to walk to all of the places we wanted to see. Not near as many people although in some places it felt crowded. We were able to take side streets and avoid the crowds most of the time. The sites we visited were not near as crowded as the sites in Rome. Here you can take your time and enjoy the sites without being pushed and run into. I would come back here anytime.
Friday we go to Venice via train, Sunday we fly to Paris and then Wednesday we fly home. This trip is going by very quickly.
Felt much better most of the day today. I only had to sit down once and that was when we were waiting in line. All of a sudden my heart rate jumped up and I felt light-headed again. I sat down on a door step across the street from the line. By the time Nicole got close to the entrance I was feeling better. I didn’t even get tired walking today. Only got over 12,000 steps today though. My Fitbit tells me I walked over 5 miles today.
Grateful the rain was only sprinkles when it happened today, grateful the sun came out this afternoon, and grateful for all the beautiful things I saw today. Hard to wrap my head around how old most of the things are.