Culture Shock

Today Florence. We arrived late yesterday afternoon and after a slightly harrowing negotiation of the roads (and scooters and busses and pedestrians, no donkeys) we found a parking lot to ditch the car and walked to our new abode. We have been experimenting with airbnb, a website that basically rents  furnished flats for much cheaper than a hotel room in practically every city you can imagine. Here, we have a funky flat with a loft (the boys immediately claimed it) as bedroom, kitchen and a bathroom. (On a side note, toilets here, and in Morocco as well, are the crouch variety with the standard bidet on the side. I am trying to acclimatize, WCs are hard to find in Florence anyway......culture shock?)

A selfie from the top of the Duomo!

Up early today and on the bus to the main train station where we bought Florence passes that enable us to skip lines and entrance fares at the main museums and also hop busses at will. First stop, il Duomo, what a climb and what a view. What a masterpiece of Italian marble (we saw mines our first day in Italy).

between the domes on the climb up

The Dome from the inside

Next, the Medici tombs and the first look at Michaelangelo's sculptures. Imagine that he can make one piece of marble look like it is shining in the moonlight without lighting.....


Open markets, clean and full of scarves and leather, and a giant food market with weird and wonderful things like pigs feet, skinned rabbit, spices, pasta and olives (much like Morocco without the dust) and then lunch with a large glass of white wine. Medici palazzo next, gelato and then David. Honestly, I had no idea the statue was so big. I gasped at the magnetism. The words will come later.

Then for dessert, Toby, Norm and I went to the ballet!

What can I say? Culture shock.

Ponte Vecchio from the Uffizi Gallery