We did want to. And, apparently, so did LOTS of other people!
First, we had to get from the station to our hotels. Long taxi queue. Gypsy cabs selling rides for ridiculous amounts. $50 for less than a mile? We walked.
We passed this guy on the way to our hotel
We checked into our rooms and headed straight out. First stop, Spanish Steps.
We fired up a Rick Steves walking tour and worked it backwards.
Aquaduct-fed fountain at the bottom of the steps
The column of the Immaculate Conception
Trevi fountain - and a few other folk. Too many for Google Eraser, I think.
These sights are just like in the movies...plus a thousand people or so! Moving on...
Galleria - 100 year old shopping mall - looks a bit like Penn Station Baltimore to me.
Galleria from the outside.
6th century BC Egyptian. taken after Rome conquered Egypt
Parliament - curved front to make it look larger
Pantheon
The holy hand grenade of Antioch?
A quick peek into the Chuch of St Louis of the French.
On to the Piaza Navona. Used to be a race track for training Coliseum events.
Four Rivers fountain
The four rivers were the Danube, Nile, Ganges and Rio de la Plata (guess they hadn't figured out the Amazon, yet...)
Fountain a the other end of the piazza.
Pasquino. From 300 BC. Worn out over the centuries for being used as a political speech "bulletin board".
This is Campo de' Fiori. A couple things to see here. This is the site where Julius Caesar was stabbed to death. Also, the site of a Roman theater. Columns from that theater are visible in the apartment building beyond the statue.
The statue is of Giordano Bruno. A grouchy priest from the 1500s. He wrote plays tweaking church morals, thought the earth revolved around the moon before Galileo. Got tossed from Rome. Went to Geneva and joined the Calvinists. They tossed him. Went to England. Pissed off the Queen. She tossed him. Went to Germany. Lutherans excommunicated him. Returned to Rome. Arrested by inquisition. Six years prison then burned at stake.
A Renaissance palace, now French Embassy
Ancient granite basin in Piazza Farnese
We finish the walking tour and it's getting dark. We are hunting dinner when Eris yells, "Wait!" We wait. We are just passing a restaurant one of Eric's colleagues recommended to him.
We are back in Florence, at the same hotel we started at, headed out for our farewell dinner.
Same hotel. Different room.
Farewell dinner location
The meal was really good. There was just so much of it! Beef. Veal. Pasta. Soup. Beans. Four deserts. Oh. And wine!
Our group
The rest of our group.
Funky plates: "the cook and his wife" china
Soup with bread - local cuisine
Grappa! Did it help? I didn't hurt!
Oh, but wait! There is one more part of the tour still to go. A walking tour and a visit with David. We started at the Florence Academy Gallery.
James, Stephen and Peter - 1493
Our guide
Some unfinished work by Michelangelo. He worked alone, so lots of stuff didn't get finished.
He finished this one! David
side eyes...
The tour covered parts of Florence we had seen in "part 1". Here is God with the trinity hat glaring down at us.
Neptune fountain at City Hall.
Arcade with famous sculptures.
Rape of Sabina woman
Basillica of Santa Maria Novella
Lots of frescos
A side chapel
Tree of life scupture at Sedile Piazza
We took and early quit to go do some laundry and headed to hotel's roof top bar and a light snack for dinner.
Reflection in the Arne
We stayed until the sun went down.
...and most nights, a street concert.
The next day, it was up and at'em again. This time, the Ufizzi Galleray, home to Davinci, Michelangelo and Raphael - the "big 3" Renaissance artists. We followed a Rick Steve's audio tour, which was excellent.
A hall of statuary at the Ufizzi
Venus de'Medici. A marble copy of an original 1st century Greek bronze.
Battle of San Romano. Shows early attempts at getting 3D perspective into paintings.
Venus on a half shell. Or "The Birth of Venus" by Botticelli
The Calumny of Apelles - Botticellli
Diptych of Federico de Montefeltro and Battista Sforza - showcases push to realism in Renaissance
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Rapael portraits. Much realism. Guy on left is staring at me!
Dondi Tondo by Michelangelo
Adoration of the Magi by DaVinci. Unfinished. Like a lot of his paintings....
Laocoon and his sons. A copy. Legend is they were on their way to blab about Trojan Horse, when struck down and killed by snakes.
Venus of Urbino. What's going on in the background?
Venus and Satyr
Speaking of excellent, we followed our former tour guide, Anita's advice for lunch and ate 4 Leoni for lunch. It was great! We were lucky to get in - most likely because we were early for lunch.
Then came the Pitti Palace. (One of the) Home(s)of the Medici's. All the rooms that were open were once part of the residence, but are now art galleries.
An inlaid table top
Eric finding a childhood memory. He was here as a boy.
Behind the palace was Boboli Gardens. It was quite extensive but we wandered through most of it.
Goddess of Harvest - Ceres
From the gardens looking south
We headed back to the hotel to clean up for dinner, but stopped in at a local English speaking Catholic church.
Our hotel recommended and secured a reservation at a trattoria around the corner. Excellent, again!
