Day Nine - Firenze ( Part Two )

After going through a day of withdrawals by not having some of Signora Maria's delicious breakfast treats ( how dare she be closed on Sunday! ), it was back to business as usual this morning.  Every time I go in there, we exchange pleasantries and she inevitably rattles off a paragraph of stuff where I am completely lost.  My typical response is to just nod and smile, because I have no idea what she is saying.  At least she still smiles when I walk in the door.

I had to make a stop at the local grocery store on the way back from the bakery to pick up a few items. When I got back, we all ate our breakfast and piled into the car for another journey to Florence.  The weather today was about 80 degrees and sunny, with barely a cloud in the sky.  A big difference from our last trip into the cradle of the Renaissance!  We ran into a bit of traffic on the way in, but otherwise it was for the most part uneventful.  We still had some issues getting to the parking garage, but that was mainly due to my faulty memory about which way we had to turn in a particular spot.  A trip around the traffic circle and all was well.  I had the itch to say "Look kids, Big Ben, Parliament", but resisted.

We proceeded into the belly of the beast and found ourselves at a place called Verrazano's for lunch.  It is about a block from the Duomo, and we had read about it as a spot for a lunch with a different twist.  The waiter at Verrazano's was very very good.  He was American, but fluent in Italian, French and a few other languages.  His mother had worked for Harvard for 40 some odd years in Florence, and most of his family is still there.  We traded barbs about the Yankees and Red Sox, as well as the Lakers and Celtics, then settled in for a great lunch.  He recommended a focaccia sampler that had small sandwiches, each made with a few different ingredients.  I could not tell what all of them were, but one of the more interesting ones had fresh peas on it.  I am not a huge fan of peas in any form, but the sandwich was quite good.  The kids had a soda that is a native lemon soda ( I have the name written somewhere ) that has almost no sugar in it.  It had a twist of some lemon grown here in Italy in it to sweeten it, and it was very good as well.  

After lunch, we split up.  Shelley and Margaret went shopping for a few things, and Charlie and I just sort of wound our way through the city.  Charlie had decided he wanted an Inter-Milan jersey after the victory the other night, so we found one of those along the way.  After a couple hours, we reconnected and headed for Grom, a gelateria close to the Duomo.  The line was huge when we got there, and we soon found out why.  It was very creamy and really flavorful.  I tried pistachio for the first time and now have a new item to add to the list of flavors I enjoy.

We spent the rest of the day walking through Florence, stopping for a bit at Piazza Del Vecchio.  After that, we went across the river and climbed the hill to Piazzola Michaelangelo.  This is the spot where ( I am guessing ) most photos of Florence are taken, and the view is amazing.  For the first time, we got a feel for the relative size of the Duomo and how far above the rest of the city it towers.  The rest of the city was awash in the late afternoon sun, and provided a great backdrop to just sit and enjoy a few minutes of downtime.

After we came back down the hill, we headed for the car and back south on the A1.  As we left the city, I said "One great city down, many more to come."  I hope we can make it so.  We get to Rome on Friday, where we hope to add another to the list.

I will be uploading pictures in the morning from the last few days.  I realize a lot of what we write here is a bit monotonous.  It's really been our kind of vacation, with some busy, some not so busy, and a lot of great food.  Hopefully it is still somewhat interesting.  As we get to the end, we will take some time to write about how we traveled, what we looked for, etc. to hopefully help anyone else out that is thinking about a similar trip.

Until next time, buonanotte.