Yesterday I explored the North and East sides, today the West and South.
--I started at Santa Maria Novella, which is a beautiful church with wonderful frescoes by several artists. I liked it even better than Santa Croce, which I saw yesterday. Of course, Santa Croce was entirely covered in scaffolding on the inside.
--Walked south to the river, then along the Arno for awhile and took a million pictures.
--I zigzaged through some medieval streets, then went to the Palazzo Davanzati which houses a museum of a medieval nobleman's life. It has been recently restored and it was a great museum with hardly anyone in it...and it was free!
--I crossed the river and headed to Santo Spirito, but they were closed for lunch.
--Next I took a long walk south to an old Roman gate of the city. My guidebook said you could climb up and walk along what remains of the old city wall, but the stairway up was locked shut. Too bad. Probably nice views from up there.
--I started walking back toward the city center and walked by La Specola--a zoological and anatomical musuem. I almost didn't go in, thinking the birthplace of the Renaissance is no place to go to natural history museum, but a friend at UT had recommended so I thought, why not? And what a place! It is full of taxidermied mammals, reptiles, birds and insects, and fish and amphibians in jars! Not all that gross, really, but I'm a little traumatized by seeing hundreds of dead animals. I counted over 300 specimens before I got tired of counting--and I was probably only halfway through at that point. There were all sorts of creatures I had never seen or heard of.
Photos weren't allowed, but eventually I decided that was a rule best ignored, so I found spots out of view of the security cameras and took pictures when no one was looking.
--After recovering from that, I zigzagged back over to Santo Spirito. It still wasn't quite open yet, so I got a gelato while I waited, tiramisu flavor. Mmmmm.
Note: I ordered a small, and I had already eaten half when I took the picture.
1 comment:
The new pictures look great. Good comment by Brian.
The gelato looks even better. After all that walking what's a pedestrian to do other than refresh with scrumptious Italian pick me ups. You going to go for gnocchi for dinner? It appears you're quickly going native.
What language do you speak while there? Have you tried French just to see what happens? I wonder what the typical number of languages a street vendor can communicate in, at least for business.
We went to the farmers market today. Mostly greens and annuals. Although rhubarb is now available. Price increases have hit everything. Cost of a tiny coleus is now $3. That would have been considered outrageous just a couple of years ago. So I ended up with a few small selections which I'll try to coddle along. A little sun would also help, but that appears to be a large challenge.
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