Florence Day 4

This morning we had our Monogram half day tour of Florence. We met a largish group of people in the lobby, then more people in the neighborhood before walking to the Galleria Dell Academia to see the statue of David. The museum wasn’t as chaotic as I would have expected. It was good to have a guide there to tell us about David. Apparently, Michaelangelo would carve from the front of the block of marble back as if he was 3D printing. David used to be in front of the Pallazo Vecchio, where there is a replica now, and considering it was in the elements for several hundred years, you can barely tell.

After the museum we had a walking tour of the neighborhood. Even though we have been wandering around Florence for a few days, it was good to get a new perspective and have some thing so pointedly out to us that weren’t so obvious.

After breaking off from the group, we found panini and went to the Boboli Gardens at the Pitti Palace. It was SO hot and pretty uphill so we didn’t spend too much time there. We left the gardens & palace and went shopping around the neighborhood before meeting up with our food tour guide.

We met our tour guide at Piazza Repubblica. She led us away from the super touristy area with the fancy name brand shops. We stopped in a building that has been owned by a family for centuries and they have so much money they have their own door at the church across the street. The family
Owns vineyards in Italy and also one in Napa. On the tour, we had truffles, prosecco, olives, meats, olive oil and gelato. Today’s flavor for both of us was almond.

After the food tour we shopped a little more. We stopped at the oldest working pharmacy in Florence. The building was so pretty but we didn’t buy anything. We got dinner at Ristorante Il Caminetto. (Thanks Aunt Adele!) We had chicken liver pate & arugula salads. Mom had pasta with scallops and I had a single serve steak Florentine that was still pretty large. It was sooooo good. After we had dinner we grabbed pastry and went back to the hotel.