Italy - Day 5 - Florence Summary

Monday, December 10th, 2007

Clara served us our breakfast to our room at 9am. We had cereal, yogurt, toast, bacon, scrambled eggs, juice and fresh baked bread. Everyone in the room sat around and ate. There was Aaron from Australia, Joss from Australia, Karen and Jennifer from Canada. We all got to chat about our experiences and what we were planning to do that day. After breakfast I headed out to see the town.

I headed straight over to the Duomo. This was perfect because the weather was in the mid 60's and only partly cloudy. Clara had warned us that it would rain later, but thankfully that didn't happen. I took pictures inside and outside the Duomo and then headed over to the Piaza di Signoria where 6 amazing statues are on display. I particularly like the depiction of Hercules killing the centaur. The level of detail that is put into the work is simply mind-blowing.

click here to see more pictures from the duomo (cathedral)
click here to see more pictures from Florence

I found a coat shop and found a jacket that I liked as much as the 400 euro jacket I found near the square the day before. I'm much more content spending 380 euro than I am spending 600 euro.

I crossed over Ponte Vecchio, the famous shop-covered bridge of Florence. It must be amazing to work in those shops because they all had amazing views of the waterfront.

After crossing the bridge I began looking for a hill on which I could take a picture of the skyline. While walking I stumbled upon a side entrance to the Boboli gardens. I paid the 7 euro entrance fee and wandered around the beautiful grounds. There was almost no one there and I found a place back off by itself where I just sat down and wrote up notes about what happened during that day and the day before. It was so secluded and peaceful and such a change of pace from the city.

I walked back to the Duomo. The GPS actually kinda worked on the way back. I was able to follow the old city walls back to the river and the over to the cathedral. On the way back I found a shoe shop and picked up a pair of shoes for 20 euro. Much cheaper than the 70 euro they push in the market.

I then headed over to Massimo's Leather shop (click here to see more) and bought my jacket*. Figured it would be good to get it before someone happened on it and stole it out from under me. Not likely, I know, but I'm the type that would rather get something quickly than wait around thinking about it.

dinner

Clara is making us dinner tonight. So I had to be back by 7:30pm. She only makes dinner when she decides she wants to and boy am I glad she wanted to. When I got back, I was able to sample the food and I knew then that it was going to be a very good dinner. Clara let me taste some of the fresh Tuscan olive oil and see why the flavor of the food was so good. So now I have to bring back a few bottles of olive oil with me or else I'll never forgive myself. Even just the oil on a piece of bread was good.

Dinner was served at 7:15pm and was all that I hoped it would be. We had red wine, vegetable soup, potatoes, Chicken with Sausage and a banana chocolate cake for desert. Clara charged us 10 Euro and let me tell you, that was a bargin. In addition to having a great meal the 9 of us who shared a meal together were able to become well aquainted. There were 4 Ausies, 2 Canadians, 1 Mexican and 2 of us from the U.S. After we finished the meal and the 3 pitchers of wine, we stayed up until 1 talking. We even went out and got 3 more bottles of wine to keep the party going. It was a lot of fun and I'm sad Clara didn't cook more.

Unfortunately, Clara didn't join us. Besides having plans to go out, she makes it a habit to not eat with her clientel. I think that's a shame because we would all be better off having shared a meal or two with her. Like I said before, Clara's a sweetheart.

I tried to help Dina with her memory card problem. She had her pictures burned to DVD and her cards still had the pictures on them, but her camera wouldn't take pictures on the cards. I helped her out by getting pictures off of one of her cards so she could take pictures until the situation was straightened out. Luckily she was able to get everything burned again correctly the next day and the problem was resolved.

Then, with a happy and full stomach, I went to bed. What an awesome day.

-END DAY 5-
Click here to see day 4
Click here to see day 6

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