Day 7 Florence: August 5, 2007

I got to Florence around noon today. In keeping with my goal to see new places this trip, I decided to go across the Ponte Vecchio (means Old Bridge) to the Pitti Palace and Boboli Gardens. It's not as far as I thought, really just a couple of blocks across the river. I had to buy 2 separate tickets, one for the palace and one for the gardens.








The picture at left shows you the Ponte Vecchio (means old bridge.) There are shops on the bridge which sell all kinds of gold jewelry. Originally there were butcher shops, but the Medici duke didn't like the smell, so he got rid of the meat sellers and replaced them with goldsmiths! Across the top is the Vasari Corridor, a private passageway used by the Medicis to get from their palaces on one side of the river safely to their offices on the other side without being assasinated!

The palace is a huge Renaissance stone building, former home of the Medicis (powerful ruling family dynasty of Florence.) Now it is an interesting mix of furnishings in the family apartments and fabulous art and costumes from operas!

I really wanted to go to the gardens, but they were getting ready to close, I was too tired to run, and all the gardens were uphill. So I decided to just see what I could. There are no flowers; it's kind of like a park on a hill.



At the top of the hill was the porcelain museum (fabulous china in a smaller palace) and great views all around.

I also managed to get into the exhibit Gardens of Babylon and Ancient Rome. It wasn't all that great, but I enjoyed it because it had some stuff from Pompeii that I saw when I just went there just this week. It was also closing, but I got to see all I wanted.

When I left, the bus stop was close and a bus came right away. I went downtown to the Duomo (cathedral with red brick dome in the picture) which was the first Renaissance dome built since ancient Rome. I wandered down through the center of Florence and I loved it and now I'm here in the internet spot and you are great and I have to go!