1979 Florence (8/31/1979)

Friday, August 31, 1979

We did wake up just in time to get off at Florence. It was 4:30 or 5:00, so we ate breakfast and more or less planned our day as we dodged the fellows sweeping sawdust across the floor. We checked our baggage and at 7:00 started exploring Florence. We had heard the open-air market opened at 7:00 so we went there first. The dry goods merchants were just beginning to set up their stalls. The meat and fish merchants were also setting up, and we saw an abundance of octopus (squid?), fresh fish of all sizes, etc. We saw whole skinned rabbits and pigs, and still-feathered chickens, and we were getting grossed out! Too much of everything! The fruit stalls were all open and doing business. We headed towards the cathedral which was extremely colorful. We had a stand-up breakfast of tea and grapefruit juice at a bar. We made our way back past the market, still under preparation. Headed towards the Accademia which also wasn't open yet. We wandered around the area and into a church where Mass was being held for six people. We stayed through that and then wandered into another church for rest and meditation until Florence woke up. Finally got into the Accademia, a small place with half the rooms closed up. But standing there was the original; statue of David by Michelangelo; what a hunk!

Accademia ticket

David by Michelangelo

We went to the open-air market where all sorts of stuff is sold, but mostly leather goods. Most of the stalls even took charge cards. We didn't find anything of interest although we were actively looking for souvenirs. There wasn't a great variety and prices weren't necessarily cheaper. We went window shopping on our way back to the cathedral. Kathy found a really nice black leather briefcase for her dad, in a little shop where the proprietor spoke little English and he made me translate his selling spiel. He also had trouble with the charge card machine which we also “translated” for him. We were concentrating on shopping that morning but stopped to look around inside the cathedral. There wasn't much to see because of restoration.

Il Duomo di Firenze/Florence Cathedral

We continued our window shopping and ended up on the bridge over the Arno River which is covered with jewelry shops, mostly gaudy and expensive stuff. I saw a beautiful tie in a shop window only to discover the folded-over part was ugly! We then backtracked to a fast-food place serving micro-waved spaghetti, lasagna, etc. After lunch we found a glove factory where they sold decent gloves. I bought a pair for my grandmother and Kathy bought a pair for her mother.  We seemed to have been charging away! We found ourselves at the Palace of the Uffizi where they have a huge art museum.

Uffizi ticket

We went in and looked and looked, seeing works of Michelangelo, da Vinci, Rembrandt, Rubens, Raphael, and especially Botticelli, just to name a few! The lighting in this museum was awful, and many paintings were protected by glass, resulting in a glare. There was a real artist at work doing a copy of a da Vinci portrait. The museum even had a bar and outdoor tables on a balcony; we were able to look down on the city with all its TV antennas! Later we went to the museum next door to see the anatomical sketches done by da Vinci during human dissections. There were several errors, but it was amazing what he was able to discern.

Ticket for da Vinci's anatomical drawings

We continued our window shopping, passing through the open market again. We stopped at an outdoor café where Kathy had a huge bowl of ice cream, and I had a fruit salad in an equally large bowl. After checking the train schedule at the station, we finished our shopping spree with a mad dash. I found a tie for my father and gloves for my mother. We returned to the train station to await our train which was late because of the just-ending strike. We wanted to take the first train out of Italy to get away from all the strikes, and we hoped to head for Switzerland where Kathy’s father recommended she buy a new camera. While at Gianni’s house, Kathy called her parents to learn she had another month’s wait before becoming an aunt. She also explained to her parents that her Minox camera had a shutter problem which would cost $50 to repair and would have to be sent to the factory for at least four weeks. Trade-in value was a measly $25. She was advised to go ahead and buy another camera. We got on a train headed for München, Germany and were joined by a Napoli family, the mom and two little girls stayed in our compartment. The girls were really cute and well-behaved, probably because they were sleepy. The 4-5-yr. old was given a train brochure to amuse herself, and she studied it carefully before falling asleep. Don’t blame her as it was probably boring!

Map of Florence

Next: Munich again.