Day 5 Florence, See Uffizzi to Venice; July 20, 2008

Like Renaissance art? The greatest Italian art in the world is concentrated in one fantastic museum, the Uffizzi in Florence.

Imagine a grand Italian Renaissance building, built in the 1500's in the shape of a long U. Now make the legs longer. Put the best art on the top floor, so people climb up 2 stories to start at one end of the U, gaze with amazed oohs and aahs at paintings they've only seen in books, and exit at the other end. Decorate the long corridor with real Roman statues and busts of such heros as Nero and Agrippa, and add the Medici power brokers of the 1500's. Now put a line of 1000 people outside, just hoping to get in for their own once-in-a lifetime glimpse. That's the Uffizzi!

Fortunately, we had a reservation for 8:15, the earliest time slot. That meant we had to really book it to get there on the bus after breakfast at our hotel. I dropped the group at the entrance and ran across the courtyard to pay for our tickets. My wait in line was less than a minute. I took the tickets back to our people, and in one more minute we were in! Show your ticket, go through security, show your ticket again, go through the turnstile, climb the stairs, and show your ticket again at the top. Wow! That's the easy way to see the Uffizzi! Call Italy for a reservation 2 months before you go, and choose the early morning. The 1000 people in the line isn't bad compared to how long it gets by lunchtime!

We saw Boticelli's Birth of Venus and Spring, Michelangelo's Holy Family, an El Greco, the Duke of Urbino and his wife, and lots of other priceless stuff.

Back to the hotel, pick up our bags, drag them to the further bus stop, and ride up to Pizzale Michelangelo. It's a great view spot from the hill across the river; you can see the cathedral and the Uffizzi and the river and the whole town with mountains in the background. It was fabulous! We took wonderful pictures and I saw a great black Audi sportscar that made a throaty sound. I chased it across the parking lot, ducking between the cars to get a picture. What a great time!

Piazzale Michelangelo is also a favorite spot for thieves. Larry spotted a man going near our bags, and moved over a few steps to take hold of my red suitcases. He called Dick to come over, and the guy disappeared into a group of dark-looking young men! Larry saves the day again . . .

On the train to Venice we met an American opera singer of Uruguayan descent, who had been in Italy for a month working. He sang for us on the train; an aria from the opera La Traviata. When he finished we all applauded! He had a nice spirit about him, and he missed his family, so we (especially Dick) talked to him for a long time. In fact, so long that he missed getting off in Bologna and had to go all the way to Padua to turn around!

Venice is always amazing. We took the water taxi down the Grand Canal to St. Mark's Square, then dragged our suitcases through little medieval streets (no cars in Venice) to our hotel. It may not be very fancy, but it sure is old! Plus it reeks of character. The one shower for 3 floors is fortunately outside our door. So is the toilet. No air conditioning, just a ceiling fan. On the other hand, we do have hand-blown leaded glass windows overlooking a little canal on the gondola route, the location is perfect, and there's a bidet we can use in our room . . .

The best bell tower in Europe is the one in St. Marks Square. That's because it's the only one with an elevator! The views all over the city and the water and lots of islands and huge bells that ring back and forth make it a really cool experience.

The second time the bells rang, 10 minutes later, Larry wanted to leave. By the 3rd time, we were holding our ears and ready to get out of there!

Wander Venice in the evening; the crowds are much less and it's magical. Wish my whole family was here!

Day 4 Florence; July 19, 2008

We've settled into a routine: I lead the 4 others around and show them things, and then we split up for meals. Larry, Dick and I eat on the cheap, and Ron and Edith go to a sit-down restaurant. It seems to work pretty well, and gives everyone a little free time.

We took the train from Rome to Florence this morning. It was a Eurostar, which means it was fast and expensive. It slid like glass through the Italian countryside, with old fortresses and ruins topping the hills and vineyards and newer towns below. My people all thought it was wonderful, but some were so tired they kept falling asleep. Less than 2 hours later, we were in Florence.

Ah, Florence! Birthplace of the Renaissance and home to the powerful Medicis, ruthless patrons of the arts! Much of it still looks the same, with narrow little streets and red tile roofs, with the powerful Duomo overlooking it all.

Bus to hotel to drop our bags, then another bus to the Accademia. I wanted to show my people where Michelangelo's David is, so they could meet me back there at 4:00 for our reserved entrance time. We had a lovely walk down through the center of the old town, from the Accademia past the Medici Palace and the Orsanmichele church that in the 1300's was a granary, through the courtyard of the Uffizzi (fabulous Italian art we will see tomorrow) down to the River Arno.




We wandered out onto the Ponte Vecchio (old bridge) to see the river and the gold shops and feel the ambiance of Renaissance Florence. It was evening and everyone was out for their passagiata (evening stroll.) This is really living!


Then we had to really book it to get back to the Accademia for our appointment. The David you see in the picture is a copy. they moved the original indoors, because in a riot someone threw a couch out of an upstairs window and damaged him. The real David is still as wonderful as he was 500 years ago! To me that is really amazing. People still look up at him and marvel. What makes a statue that much better than all the thousands of others?

Larry and Dick wanted to climb up to the top of the dome of the Cathedral, so they left the group and had an invigorating session with 467 stairs upward, in between the dome-in-a-dome construction of the first big dome since Roman times. It was a marvel then, and it still amazes. They came out way up on top and could see all over the red tile roofs of the city and clear to the mountains in the distance.

Larry and Dick and I wandered to the Straw Market and rubbed the nose of a big brass pig That's supposed to make sure you come back to Florence! I'm sure I will, because I love it here.

I'm eating my wieght in gelato. Italian ice cream is the best in the world! I'm going to have to quit it before I get really fat!

Day 8 Florence to Prague: August 6, 2007

This is going to be crazy because I borrowed this laptop from the girl at the reception desk. I am sitting in mz room (shown at left) talking to zou which is so verz convenient. The computer has a lot of things different, like the z and the y kezs are reversed places. I think I will just go for it because to fix things will take too long and I am trzing to hurrz on her computer.

I think I set a new record todaz~ 2 museums in 45 minutes!

I was in a huge hurrz because I had to leave mz hotel in Florence at ten oclock to catch mz plane to Prague and I did not know exactlz how it was to be done.

I wanted to go to the Bargello because it has the original of Donatello§s David, which was the first male nude since the Romans, and it caused quite a stir and was verz influential on later sculptors. He did it in the 1400§s. So I found the musem last night, when I was leaning on it looking at mz map and realiyed it was right behind me!

So I blitzed out of the hotel at 8,15 this morning and almost immediatlez mz my bus 14 came, so I was there in 10 minutes. The Bargello looks like a fortress from the outside, and it actuallz was used for a prison for awhile. Inside it has a great courtzard and staircase. I found David upstairs lzing on a table with stickers and numbers all over him, surrounded bz lights and equipment. He is being restored in full view of the public, which I think is reallz cool. Thez also have another David bz the same sculptor (this one has clothes) and he is verz cool also. Thez also have another David bz Verrocchio, so it was fun to compare them. All these Davids were previous to Michelangelo§s. David was sort of the szmbol of Florence, the little guz (Florence) surrounded bz all those big mean citz-states like Pisa and Lucca and Venice.

Then I skipped up to The Museum of the Duomo, which is onlz about 3 blocks awaz.
I wanted to see the wooden model by the original architect of the big brick Dome. Thez have his actual model from the 1400's! It was the first big dome since the Romans, and no one knew how to build one, because it was so huge, but he designed a szstem of scaffolding that hung from the sides of the dome, which thez added to as thez went up. Verz cool!

Thez also have the original panels of the Doors of Paradise. That is, thez have 7 of them. I asked about the others. Thez are on tour in the USAof course!

The verz best part of the musem was a final Pieta bz Michelangelo. He did the one zou all know in Rome when he was onlz about 20 years old, I think. This one, he was nearlz 80 and it was intended for his own tombstone. It was so cool I cried, surprise to me . . . The bodz of Christ is being taken down from the cross bz Nicodemus, with Marz looking on. Michelangelo sculped himself as Nicodemus. There is a tradition that Nicodemus was a sculptor. It is known that Michelangelo espůeciallz identified with this sculpture. Remember, M. is thought to have lived a rather bad lifestzle. Nicodemus asked the question, "How can a man be born again when he is old?" Christ told him to be born of water and the spirit. Remember, M. was old himself, and in need of forgiveness. Anzwaz, I guess zou had to be there, but it was verz moving to me.

I was reallz in a hurrz, so I was out of there in 20 minutes and ran to the bus stop and caught a bus back to my hotel in a couple of minutes. I had to go home to the hotel and get mz posters, which were alreadz in a tube, and run to mail them from the Florence Post Office a couple of blocks awaz and run back and get mz suitcases and get another bus to the station and then get tix and a shuttle to the airport for flight supposed to leave at 1300. I wanted to be to the airport 2 hours earlz, because I had no idea what kind of problems I might find going to Czech Republick, but there were none and no line for Meridiana Airlines! When I saw the HUGE & SLOW line for Air France, I was once again reminded of the great pain checkin always is with them in Paris. Some of zou will remember that . . .

Takeoff out of Florence was cool, because zou can see the Dome and the citz. The flight was uneventful. Guz next to me had 2 prosthetic legs and on real and one prosthetic arm, age 30 I guess, but did not speak English, so we gave up and did not talk.

I was reallz kind of nervous about coming here, because I can't speak anz Czeck and there is no waz zou can read anz of the signs, because their language is not related to anzthing I know. Besides, I did not know the laz of the land or even have a map with both the town and the airport on it.

I took a shuttle minivan into town to mz hotel and it worked just fine. I was reallz glad to be here, I tell zou that!

After a few minutes I went out walking. Mz hotel is onlz a block from Charles Bridge (700 years old) and it is verz cool. This place has so much fabulous architecture zou cannot believe it! Most places there is a reallz cool building here and there, but here thez are ALL verz cool. I don§t think Prague was bombed in WWII.

I went to a reallz cool play tonight. It was a Black-Light plaz, sort of a takeoff on Alice in Wonderland. Black light theater was invented in Prague. I should saz the whole thing was a pantomime, no words, just cool spacey music like in the Detroit Airport tunnel. It was great and I reallz liked it because it was verz creative until the end, when thez had Alice get naked on stage and hold out this apple that she had been carrzing around all night. Anzwaz, as soon as that happened I got up and walked out. I had to fight the curtain over the door (kind of like punching mz waz out of a wet paper bag in the dark) and could not bet the door open, but I got out of there! No warning whatsoever . . . All the punctuation is different on this kezboard . . . One of the workers asked me if I liked the plaz. I said I liked the first part, but not the naked ladies on stage.ů He said other people like it. I told him some other people don§t like it, but thez don§t get up and walk out because it is embarassing. So there!

I walked back home over Charles Bridge. Sunset is pink over the spires of the castle and manz church domes and it is all verz cool. I am too tired to eat. This place is amaying for beautiful buildings everz inch. Zou have to come see.

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!

Kerry in Venice 1st Night: Nov. 21, 2005

Today was a travel day from Florence to Venice. I have learned that on travel days, you want to take a fairly early train, or you won't have much time when you get to your destination because everything closes at 5:00 in winter.

This morning my train did not leave until 10:37, but I was ready at 8:30. What to do to use the extra time profitably? There were lots more things to do in Florence that I didn't get to do, but the only real heartburn I had was not making it up to Piazzale Michelangelo, the lovely lookout over the whole city that has the big replica of David. I checked all the bus routes, and decided to try it. It would be really tight, but I felt good about it, so I went.

I rushed 5 blocks to the correct bus stop dragging both suitcases, but the bus didn't come for 25 minutes, which is a really long time in Florence. I was watching on the map where we were going so that I would know where to get off, but when we got there, it was really obvious. There I am in the picture above, at Piazzale Michaelangelo. I discovered that the same bus I'd just gotten off would come again in 20 minutes, and it would go directly to the train station! I would not have to take the bus I planned, switch busses, wait again, and hope I got there on time! So I was even half an hour early! Some things are just plain great.

Last night after I sent my e-mail to you, I had a funny travel experience. When I signed off, I realized I might be in trouble getting home, because it was quarter to ten on Sunday night. So I walked rapidly across the old center of town, past the Palazzo Vecchio (pix at left, except it was dark) and by the Uffizzi, and it was pretty empty. I turned the corner and started walking up this little narrow medieval street to where I thought I could get a bus for my hotel. After a minute, I saw a bus turn the corner up ahead of me, but it was too far away, and I couldn't get it. I hurried up to the bus stop, about a block away, and here came another bus. It wasn't the right one, but at that hour I figured I'd better just take it as far as it kept going my direction, and then get off and walk.

The driver was going pretty fast down the very narrow street. It's about as wide as Wendy's driveway, and there was a row of cars parked on the left, so it was really tight for our speed. Soon I could see that we were catching up to the first bus, which had slowed down for an even narrower area caused by some construction. The bus in front of us was the bus number I needed! So with much gesturing and pointing, I asked the driver, "Can I get on that bus?" Somehow he understood. He started going really fast and flashing his lights again and again. The first bus stopped at the constricting point, and I did the dare and jumped out of the rear bus; the front bus opened his back doors, and I hoppped in! It worked! As I waved to the driver of the bus behind me I could hardly believe my good fortune! This bus took me within 3 blocks of my hotel, and I was in my own room less than 25 minutes after I left the internet point downtown. Some things are just great . . .

So the train ride from Florence to Venice was really very pretty in spots, especially when the sun came out. There were lots of Italian soldiers on the train, too, all with camouflage backpacks and green canvas suitcases. They said they were going to a place near Venice.

I have learned train WC's suck, but that's better than having to hunt for one after you stop, dragging all your luggage.

Internet gets more expensive as you go North. The countryside gets prettier, too, and it looks llike the people are a little richer. This internet tonight cost me €10.50 for 90 minutes. I am deep in the back alleys of Venice. The hotel was €5 for 30 minutes. In Rome I only paid €3 for 90 minutes.

After arriving in Venice, I drug my suitcases all over creation trying to find the hotel. It's really close to the train station, but on an island across the Grand Canal. I just took the long way around and around.

I have a tiny little room with 2 youth size single beds, a glass chandelier, and hand-painted door decorations. I have my own bathroom, but it's across the hall. Both doors lock automatically every time they shut, so I have to take my key with me every time, and you know how slick I am at opening locks!

I finally got on the vaporetto toward St. Mark's Square where the big church is. I took lots of photos as we went down the Grand Canal for all of you who don't get to come in June. You'll just have to see my pix! It was 3 in the afternoon, but the light was already that kind of gold you always see in pictures of Venice. I found that gondolas are always black with a gold pinstripe, because of a 500-year old law.

St. Mark's Cathedral looks like something out of The Arabian Nights. It's white and gold and has five pointy onion domes on top. It is so cool! The floor is covered in tiny marble mosaics, and it's uneven as the waves of the sea. Venice is sinking, but not very evenly! I went behind the altar to see the golden altarpiece. Amazing! It's all gold, about 4 feet by 8 feet long, and covered in painted enamel pictures and decorated with real rubies, emeralds, pearls, topaz, and more gold. The treasure came from Venetian ships ransacking Constantinople, another Christian city. Under the altar are supposedly the bones of St. Mark, as in Matthew, Mark , Luke, and John.

I need to finish this and get back to the hotel, which is probably an hour's walk and boat ride away. This internet place is definitely in the bowels of Venice. It does have a concrete street, but it's only ten feet wide, down 4 little alleys with turns to get here.

In Florence the have tiny little delivery trucks, some no taller than Sarah or Tiffany, and as long as the armspan of Michael and Andrew put together. They are about as wide as Jared's armspan. They have only 3 wheels, like a tricycle Amy might ride. There are all kinds, and I even saw one that was a dump truck!

You can't drive in Florence. Every single parking place is filled, except I saw 2 on Sunday. They have a system that takes pictures of every license plate that enters the no-drive zone in the old city, and if you don't have a permit, or have not registered your car with your hotel beforehand, you will get a hefty fine added to your rental car bill! So that's why the traffic is heavy, but not gridlocked.

I have seen lots of little olive orchards from the train. Wherever there's a bit of ground, they plant a few rows of olive trees. You can tell by the grey-green leaves.

I have seen lots of men kissing girls. For some reason it looks different that in the USA, because the man is actively doing the kissing, and initiating it. The girl seems to be the receiver.

Heidi, I took your advice and bought a phone card as soon as I got here, but I never could figure out how to make it work. I have tried several times. So Larry, sorry that I have not called you!

I about froze to death in Florence. In church I asked if they had any heat in this country, and they said yes, usually, but it was only just past November 15. I asked, "What does that have to do with it?" That's the date the government turns the heat on. What!!? "I suppose you could turn it on earlier, but it's very expensive." The government mandates that hotels turn on heat after November 15. So the church was still freezing on the 20th, because no one had been in those rooms since the 15th. Is Italy Socialist?

This has been a wonderful trip. I just wish I had one of you or some of you or even all of you to share it with! I'd have run your legs off, I'm sure!

I will write again tomorrow night, after my last day in Italy. Then Wednesday I come home: bus to airport, Venice to Paris, Paris to Atlanta, Atlanta to SLC. My plane comes in about 9:30 p.m. I think.

I love you all,

Mom

Kerry in Florence 2nd Night: Nov. 20, 2005

Hey, this keyboard has American punctuation as well as our letter layout! This should be much faster. The computer keyboard seems to be different in every country and even within countries.

Today was Sunday. I had ViaMichelin.com directions for the Church, so after breakfast (nice breakfast room downstairs) I got on a bus and found the address. That's it in the picture below. You can see the reflection of the street behind me in the glass door to the church, so you can get an idea of the neighborhood. Firenze 2nd Branch meets on the second floor of a 5-story building in a decent area NE of the oldest part of the city. It's only got a few classrooms, and the chapel seems about twice the size of our living room: three little chairs on the right side of the aisle, four on the left.

I just now had the strangest experience - some teenage boy came into the Internet Point where I am and came up to me and started begging. The girl working here came and kicked him out. I didn't even get a chance to speak to him. It felt wierd. There are beggars everywhere. I've given a few of them some coins. I'm sure most of them are legit here, which gets to me even more.

So in this branch are several Americans, mostly college-age girls over here on 3-4 month study abroad programs or being a nanny. One of them actually taught us an English-speaking Sunday School class. In Relief Society, there were only about six of us when it started, but there were 10 when it finished, plus the missionaries who came in to translate for me. They say they have all the programs of the Church here, so I asked how many Young Women. They said six.

I met this interesting good-looking American couple. He's an artist painting here, has long curly hair, and looks like Jesus. His wife is really pretty in a very natural sort of way. She looked a little weak, and we found out she's expecting and having morning sickness. She had to run out. Here's his website: www.diediker.com If you see a picture with 3 ladies in a red dress called "ketchup," that's his wife.

After church a lady heated up some rolls with chocolate chips (they put choc chips in yogurt and everything else here) and I had one. Good thing, too, because that was the last food I had until I got back from Pisa. I was getting pretty hungry!

I caught a bus to the train station and waited in line to buy a ticket to Pisa. They have lots of vending machines that sell the tix, but I haven't figured them out yet. Tonight I asked a tall Chinese girl to teach me how to do it so I don't have to stand in the line any more.

I got on the train (no reservations for local trains on Sunday) and sat by a window facing front. Soon I was surrounded by African men yakking away. At first I couldn't tell what language it was, because they still have the African inflections. They were speaking Italian but they sounded African to me!

The train (of course) stopped at every little town, taking 1 1/2 hours instead of the fast train, which I should have taken, which is only 1 hour. Oh well. It also went through the seediest part of every town, but every so often you'd get a glimpse of a castle on top of a hill or an old church. Welcome to second-world Italy!

In Pisa, I found that the bus number to the Leaning Tower that was listed in Rick Steves was no longer right. So I just started asking, and hopped on some other bus and was there in ten minutes. I immediately went to buy a ticket for the top. You must get a ticket with an assigned time. My time was 4:30, an hour away. I figured that was ideal, because it gave me time to look around the Cathedral and read up in my guidebook and be on the top of the tower just at sunset. And I was! It was SO COOL with the sun going down and watching the mountains in the distance and talking to people from all over. I went to the very top, on the 8th level. That's the picture at the top of this post.

On the 7th level there are 7 huge bells, all like our liberty bell. While I was standing by them, this announcement came on in lots of different languages, saying the bells were about to start ringing. It's a good thing they make the announcement, so no one falls off the tower in fright at the huge giant clanging sound! It was SO loud!

The church there is also quite unusual, in a style called "Pisan Romanesque." It was started around the year 1050, I think, and it's covered in white marble with grey horizontal marble stripes. It was built with the fabulous wealth plundered from Moslem sites in Corsica, I think. It almost looks Byzantine, but of course the city of Pisa was a great sea power rivaling Venice, and it traded with Byzantium.

I took a different bus back to the train station. Train was (of course) not on the track it said on the big board, so I had to scoot under the tracks to come up at the right track.

I got seated and in a minute a really lost-looking but well-dressed young punk guy came and sat across from me. He had on a ribbed sweater and an puffy orange vest and fancy jeans (very expensive over here) and an eyebrow piercing and a tongue stud. Of course I tried to talk to him. He spoke a little English and I spoke a little Italian. He's 24 and from Tuscany, but he wouldn't tell me what he does for work. He said it was too hard to tell in English. Maybe he's a drug dealer.

Anyway, soon we were surrounded by African men again. I ignored it for half an hour, and then I moved. I have found that native Italian people like you and me will all sit in one car, while immigrants will all sit in another, if there is room. My goodness. Europe used to think America was bad with race problems, and now they are having their own. I wish them well.

Back in Florence, I looked up another hotel the Air France wants to put my group into in June. It's very nice but right near the train station; good for bag hauling but bad for atmosphere and noise. I like the one I'm in tonight; I think I'll ask for it again.

I finally had some pizza for supper. It was very thin and had eggplant on it. It was about 14" across, but the crust was so thin I ate the whole thing. My time is gone; it's almost 10 PM. I must send before this computer turns off.

Love,

Mom

Kerry in Florence: Nov. 19, 2005

Well, guess what, I finally made it on the train from Rome to Florence! These guys were in the train station.

It was really interesting because after asking several people in the Rome train station, I determined I needed to be on the train to Milan. Nowhere did it say, "This is the train to Milan, but it makes lots of other stops along the way, like in Florence." So I was waiting out at the track, and I kept hearing Italian announcements that I surmised were saying that trains that were scheduled to leave from track #such & such had been changed to a different track. I'm not quick enough on the numbers yet, so I pretty much ignored them. Then, all of a sudden, everyone in my area turned around and left! I asked a nice lady who didn't speak much English, and all she said was "Follow me." So I did, and we took this cool underground tunnel that brought us up right in the middle of the correct track, and I got on and found my seat before most everyone else.

Remember when I said I got a seat reservation for this train? Well, it's sure a good thing I did, because there were more people than there were seats, because not all of them had seat reservations. There were several people in my compartment who got chased out by the person with the seat reservation. There was a very long discussion between this very well-dressed lady and two young women, when finally she realized that her seat was occupied by the only man in the compartment. He had to get up and go sit on the flip-down seat in the hall. Soon all the flip-down seats were taken, too. So as I'm riding along, I realize I can't understand the announcements, and I don't know when to get off. No one else in my compartment was really sure either, because there were two Florence stops, but we all guessed right, and I got off in the old part of Florence, and here I am!

Next thing I'm dragging 2 suitcases up and down the street, looking for the tourist info office so I can get a bus line map. I got several wrong directions, because not that many people actually know where it is. I finally found the right place down the street, and then I wanted to buy two all-day bus passes, so back I went to a place I had passed coming out of the station. I finally took a taxi to my hotel across town.

This hotel is a lot nicer than the one in Rome, and it's in a better neighborhood, too. I had to wait for my room to be made up, which was killing me, because today is Saturday, and I really needed to get going to see as many sights as possible before they close. I asked the desk clerk how to get to the Accademia, where the original of David is, and he gave me bus instructions to downtown, about a 10-minute walk from David. But since I have my handy-dandy bus map, I decided to take another bus which took me within half a block. That was one of my few smart moves today.

David was even more impressive than I remember him. Statues of David usually have him with his foot on Goliath's head, but this one is different. Michaelangelo chose the moent when David looks at Goliath, and thinks, "I can take this guy." Stones are in his right hand. The picture you see is a David copy which overlooks the city. He sort of became the symbol for the city soon after he was completed. You can't take pix of the original. I loved the "Prisoners" because it showed how Michelangelo worked, so differently from other sculptors. Others would make all these markings on the stone, but he always worked freehand. He felt like he was just freeing the sculpture that was already in the stone. The "Prisoners" are a group of unfinished sculptures, only partially freed from the stone.

Then I headed for the Duomo, the cathedral you see with the red tiled roof in all the pix of Florence. I investigated Ghiberti's doors on the Baptistry, called the "Doors of Paradise" by Michaelangelo, and then tried to find my way to the Uffizzi. I must look American, because sometimes I didn't even get the question out, and people gave me directions in English!

I'd heard it was impossible to get into the Uffizzi without reservations, but that's what they say about the Accademia, too, so I figured: hey, it's November, there's hardly any tourists, how bad can it be? WRONG! There was a line of at least 500 people stretching to the right of the entrance, all waiting just to get a reservation. There was a lighted sign saying all reservations were for tomorrow already. Then there was another line of 500 people stretching to the left, all of whom already had reservations and were waiting to get in! I maybe could have waited in line and got a reservation for tomorrow, but I wasn't going to do it. Period. I'd read that you can get reservations for the Uffizzi back at the Accademia, so I trucked back there. They can't. So I gave up on the Uffizzi, and will just have to wait to see it with my group in June. There is a phone # to get reservations, but it closed at 12:30 and won't open again until Monday. In summer you have to get reservations as much as 2 months in advance! I'll be sure to do it next time!

I walked all over Florence's center, and it is so COOL and so walkable! It was maybe 38 degrees and really breezy but sunny and I was loving it! I sure wish you were all here! I found several squares with street musicians and a merry-go-round and very fancy shops with super-sophisticated window displays and a street market section and lots of vendors who just spread out a blanket and sell leather purses and Gucci knock-offs! Heidi and Angela, I can hardly wait to show you! I loved Rome, because there was absolutely SO MUCH TO SEE, but this is even better!

I climbed up to the top of the Duomo dome, designed by Brunelleschi, and the first time anyone could ever figure out how to build such a large dome since Roman times. I have taught students about that for years, so I decided, "I don't care if it is 462 steps up and I'm tired and cold, I am going to the top! I so loved it.








You climb up steps between the inner and outer domes, and you can see how the brick walls are all on an angle. Engineers(Troy) would love it! You get to come out inside the dome and look down on the people going to mass on your way up, and again at a higher level on your way down. The ceiling frescoes are so close you can touch them! It's covered with angels and naked bodies and Mary as the Queen of Heaven and Christ above her. At the opposite side of the dome, Satan is depicted as a big red monster-person with wings and horns and eating people! Absolutely amazing! About half way down there is a landing that shows the tools they used to build it, most of them wood.

For supper I bought a slice of pizza with artichoke hearts and fresh tomato slices and some white cheese. The shop had 2 floors of seating above street level. I got the owner to translate for me, and pretty soon he even sang for me. I thought he was saying he would sing about his hotel, (initial "h" is silent) but them I realized he was singing about Othello! He had a decent bass voice. He said he missed his calling.

The Italians all get out and walk every evening. From about 5:00-7:00 the streets are filled. Tonight I walked with them during the passeggiata and I really enjoyed it, kind of window shopping and wandering and enjoying the social event with everyone, even if it's cold!

My time is going to run out that I paid for, so I'll send this now.

Love,

Mom