Firenze, Day 4

We arrived in Florence (Firenze) late Saturday afternoon, which was a bit of a nightmare. "The Big Book" we've been carrying around from Frommers told us that our hotel is in the "Medieval" city center where most cars are restricted, unless you have permission or a hotel confirmation. Having the latter, we drove around looking for our hotel. HUGE MISTAKE. Our hotel is on the Via Calzailione, a major shopping road - a cobblestone road chock-full of pedestrians. If we had arrived a few hours earlier or later, it wouldn't have been so bad. But 5 pm is the high point of afternoon strolling here, and driving through these pedestrians was quite the ordeal.

Our hotel is quite nice though, we've been doing fine with feeding ourselves, and the city is just... it pretty much leaves you speechless every time you turn a corner. Our first day here, I had to question how on earth anyone ever manages to get to work - they should be dumbstruck in the streets just like us!

Yesterday we visited... the Basilica of Santa Croce I believe it's called. It was a Franciscan church, so much of the artwork was about St. Frances. There were Byzantine altars galore, the best picture of which is below. The most important of Florence's (dead!) citizens are buried here, so we saw the decorated tombs of Michelangelo, Donatello, Galileo, Machiavelli, Dante (empty, because he was exiled from Florence and thus buried elsewhere), and many more. Yet after all of that, it was the courtyard that I found the most stunning - for its serenity.

Today we spent over four hours at the Ufizzi, communing with Fra Angelico, Michelangelo, Parmigiano, Raphael, Titian, Rubens, and Rembrandt (his room was closed, but we were able to have a peak in at this self-portrait). The main Rubens collection was closed as well. :(

Now we are a bit tired and waiting for the restaurants to reopen for dinner at 7 pm. We understand restaurants closing between lunch and dinner hours, but ALL of them remaining cosed until exactly 7 pm? So strange.

Tomorrow was supposed to be the day of our pre-paid excursion to Assisi, which was cancelled due to lack of interest from anyone other than us. :( We think we will instead spend it in a leisurely exploration of the Oltrano, the other side of the Arno River, which is a bit more residential, but with the gorgeous Boboli gardens.

Thursday is the Accademia gallery, Friday the Duomo and Medici Chapels, Saturday we drive to Lake Como. If Lake Como wasn't so freaking beautiful, it would be so tempting to just stay here in Florence for another day!