Another big day ahead….
We slept in till 9.35 and just managed to get to the dining
room before breakfast hours were over.
We walked a short distance to Cathedral di Santa Maria del
Fiore. We had seen this cathedral from
the hill top yesterday. This is an
amazing group of buildings. The main
cathedral has a crypt with the foundations of the original church built in 3 –
4ad. The new cathedral corner stone was
laid in the 12th century.
There is also a bell tower and the Baptistery. There was a long queue to go into the
cathedral which we joined thinking we could be there for ages but were
surprised that we just kept walking forward.
As I was wearing a sleeveless top I had to be covered up with a paper
poncho. I felt quite embarrassed but was
pleased to see that there were quite a number of us in the ‘blue poncho brigade
of inappropriately dressed women’. The
cathedral was magnificent. You could
climb up around the top and go up to the top of the other buildings but we
decided to go down into the crypt instead.
All sorts of bits and pieces of things found in the digging of the
footings for this new cathedral were on display.
Lunch was a panino and an iced tea while we sat on a step
and people watched – always fun in a foreign city. From there we went to the bus stop and
travelled to stop number 8 the D‘Azeglio.
We wanted to see the Archilogical Musee – with a lot of good map reading
and a pinch of luck we found the building.
It housed lots of Egyptian pieces but with little information. Some things were amazing other just puzzling.
We re-joined the bus and went to the famous bridge – Pont
Vecchio. It has shops on both sides of
the bridge – all of them Gold and Silver jewellery shops –heavenly. I bought a beautiful bracelet – that’s what I
call a souvenir. Time for another one of
those wonderful Florentine cream ice-creams.
We walked in the direction of our hotel via Basilica di San Lorenzo and
the market. We bought some leather
gifts. Time to return to the hotel for a
rest, then out for dinner – Pop had Werner Schnitzel and I had Fritto Misto –
then off to the ice cream shop.
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