Firenza, Italia

Florence, Italy is a beautiful city in the hilly interior of the country. And those hills made walking the city a little more tiring than walking around Venice.

We got to Florence on Sunday afternoon, and just took some time to rest in the hotel and eat a delicious dinner at a small restaurant.

In fact, most of the restaurants we ate in would be considered small in the USA. Most only seated 25 - 30 people... and I was very thankful that smoking is not allowed in Italian restaurants.

On Monday, we went walking all over the city. We saw many piazzas with statues, and many cathedrals. At this point we were still a bit hesitant about entering the cathedrals as tourists. It seems an odd thing to go into a church to see artwork. But we made our way into several.

We stopped in one small tourist trap of a museum that displayed replicas of Leonardo Da Vinci's inventions. It was interesting to see how many things he thought up, and how similar they are to the working products we have now. Many of the farm equipment and pully systems we know of were right there in his work. He even designed an armored tank for battle.












We visited the Duomo, the large cathedral at the center of Florence. The colored marble stonework on the exterior was impressive. I loved the green against the off-white with terra-cotta colored stones thrown in as borders to different areas. It was a beautifully grand piece of architecture and design. The inside was not nearly as ornate as some of the cathedrals we'd seen, but its simplicity made it more beautiful to me.

We then walked down by the river to another cathedral in another piazza with more statues... thus goes the day when you are in Italy. It was all very attractive and scenic.

Being Monday, the big art museums of the city were closed, so we walked south of the river to the Boboli palace and gardens. The palace and its museum were also closed, but the expansive garden with all its statues and pathways was open. We spent about an hour walking from one end to the other and back. It is on a hilltop, so from several spots we had great views out over the city.

It was a long day of walking, but quite enjoyable.