It's almost 10:30 p.m. here in Florence, and I'm stuffed.
Today we ventured out around 11:00 a.m. and walked over to Santa Maria Novella to visit the Officina Farmacia, where wonderful cosmetics and natural remedies are compounded in the same manner and using the same materials that were developed by the monks and have been used for centuries. It's a beautiful small shop that smells absolutely divine. How many such places are worthy of photographs? We took some, smelled a few things, and bought a little.
After returning to the hotel to drop off our purchases, we decided to make our final trip to the Uffizi. Bill has advised us from the beginning of our pilgrimage that the Uffizi is most satisfying when taken in small sips rather than big gulps. We chose three artists, Raphael, Titian, and Caravaggio. What a pleasure to really study the paintings, trying to "read" them as Bill has shown us. We loved the Titians most of all.
Looking for just a little snack for lunch, we popped into the Da Vinci museum. This exhibit contains models built from Da Vinci's drawings, and they are truly amazing. For a mere eight euro, we got a slice of pizza, a drink and an admission ticket. We spent a lovely half hour browsing the machines, marveling at the genius of Leonardo. I'm thinking he was an alien among us. In addition to writing up his ideas in script that read from left to right, he dreamt of things that he couldn't possibly have anticipated: helicopters, tanks, automobile differential systems, and some truly wicked weapons of war.
At 3:30, we met our group back at the hotel, ordered two taxis, and set off to the lovely mountain village of Fiesole. High atop the city, Fiesole is very, very old. It contains some truly fascinating Etruscan and Roman ruins. We browsed the archaeological museum and marveled at the ancient finds preserved there. I cannot imagine the reaction of the scientists who found the first of these tombs. There are actually small drinking glasses that are intact, some of them buried with their owners 2,000 years ago. The excitement must have been overwhelming!
After a small break for caffee latte in the tiny shaded bar, we ventured up a very, very steep hilly street that wound around into another very, very steep hilly street and found our restaurant. Our reservation was for 7:00 p.m., and we were seated right on the dot. Since we are in Italy, we were the first patrons to arrive. We old Americans dine very early in the evening by Italian standards. (By the time we left around 9:00 p.m., the place was full!) We had a very beautiful and delicious meal, probably the most elaborate one yet, complete with aperitivo and bruschetta offered at no charge by the house, followed by antipasto and our main courses. Some of the braver among us had dessert. Then we had to get ourselves back down that hilly street and into our cabs to return to our hotel.Probably a good thing - we certainly needed a little exercise after all of that lovely food.
As I sit in the small bar here at the Hotel Casci, I can hear the sounds of the street outside the open windows. A light breeze is blowing, and there are large groups of young people walking below. It's Saturday night. World Cup Soccer is on the TV, and all eyes are on the screen. I'm tired - and stuffed! To bed. Tomorrow, the Pitti Palace, the Boboli Gardens, and the Palazzo Vecchio.
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