Florence Day 2

Today was our first full day in Florence. On the first Sunday of each month, several museums are free to the public. We got up early and had breakfast in the hotel. The hotel breakfast here is good but the selection was larger in Rome. We selected a museum that opened early and we didn’t think would be that crowded. We started out at the Bargello museum. It was a really cool building with a big open air courtyard and lots of sculptures. There were early Michaelangelo pieces and A LOT of stuff commissioned by the Medici family. I knew that family ran Florence but they seem like they were SO extra. We wandered near the Palazzo Vecchio which is the town hall. Today, every hour from 9am to 1pm there was a procession which involved several men marching in mid 16th century uniforms and firing a cannon twice. It reminded me of war re-enacters in the US.

After the Bargello, we went to the Medici chapel which had more Medici stuff and an amazing chapel. A lot of the artifacts in this museum were really elaborate cases made of golf, crystal and jewels. Most of them had pieces of bone in them, some more obvious than others. I couldn’t read what all the labels say but I assume a lot of them belong to saints. I’ve read some medieval historical lit and they all seemed very enamored with bones at each church.
After the second museum, we went to eat a leisurely lunch at Ristorante Sasso do Dante (Thanks Aunt Adele). We split a caprese salad, a plate of pecorino cheese with pears, and pasta with beef sauce. It was SO good.
After lunch we escaped the heat and hung out at the hotel for the afternoon. Mom went up to the roof deck for a while. Around 530, we went out in the neighborhood to shop a little. Shopping in Glorence is overwhelming because there are SO many vendors and SO many tourists so you assume a lot of the vendors ar going to rip you off. We stopped at a pizza place back near the Palazzo Vecchio for a quick  dinner of pizza. We stopped at a gelato place that is 140 years old. Tonight’s flavors were Melon & lemon sorbet for Mom and caramel & chocolate hazelnut for me.