Pictures from Italy-- Florence

 We were in Florence Sunday March 10th to Tuesday March 12th. 

On March 11th, we drove to a place high above the city, Piazzale Michelangelo, so we could look out over it. Breathtaking. We walked around Florence, ate gelato, and went to the Galileo Museum. Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) had worked in Florence and they had some of the scientific instruments he had actually used.

For dinner that night, Hannah took us to the Florencetown-Towns of Italy cooking school. We, along with a small group of other attendees, had a 3 hour lesson on making pizza and Sicilian-style gelato (eggless). Super fun! I've made pizza using their recipe once since we've been home, plus I've made both the chocolate and the vanilla gelato.

We spent a little more time in Florence on the 12th before heading to Lucca, Pisa, and Silvano d'Orba. We did not get to see the statue of David by Michelangelo since the museum is closed on Monday and the tickets were sold out on Tuesday. We went to a paleontological museum instead. They had fossils that had been found in Italy as well as elsewhere.

FLORENCE- DAY 1

The view from the Piazzale Michelangelo:

looking down on the Arno river

looking to the east (I think)

looking north (I think) to the Palazzo Vecchio on the left and Santa Maria Del Fiore church on the right

the Palazzo Vecchio

looking to the west (I think)

In the town itself:

a random street

crossing the bridge over the Arno river into Florence

this is to show the size of the spaces for parallel parking--I couldn't do it, I'm sure, but Hannah did

part of a wall around Florence

we shared a cannoli at Mercato Centrale

they had an audio tour and Glen is tuning it

some of Galileo's scientific instruments

an interactive display--getting your cannon angle correct to bring down a target

trying out our pizzas

now it's time for our chocolate gelato

with our teacher, Federico

FLORENCE- DAY 2

the line outside the Accademia Gallery of people waiting their turn to see David

meet the Italian mammoth Peitro

we got a kick out of the fact that several of their skeletons were named

we allowed ourselves to "get lost" in Florence but followed a bus knowing it wouldn't take us where we shouldn't go