One Last Look at Florence

Following breakfast, we caught the 9:20 train to Florence. We had a couple of errands we wanted to do there, and we wanted to look around one more time.

I had read about an English-language bookstore that would take old books and give you credit towards new books. We had finished a couple more books (including My Antonia, which I can’t believe I never read before, and LOVED) and there is certainly no use dragging around books needlessly. So our first stop was at the Paperback Exchange, where we dropped off the books and picked up a couple more. We had a nice conversation with the store owner, who is a British expatriate who has lived in Florence and operated the bookstore since 1979.

After the bookstore, we visited the Bargello Gallery, which is the sculpture museum. We saw lovely works by a variety of sculptors, including this unfinished work by Michelangelo. We had hoped to see Donatello’s sculpture of David, which I’ve always loved because of the contrast between his version and that of Michelangelo. Unfortunately, David is undergoing a restoration. They are working on the sculpture right in the gallery, however, and offer you the opportunity to see. It was interesting to watch the woman carefully, painstakingly cleaning the crevices of this beautiful piece of work. I’m sure they have to be so very careful when handling priceless works of art.

Bill had a couple more gifts he wanted to buy at the outdoor market, and then we went inside to the big food market and ate lunch. Bill had a wonderful lunch of meat and bread skewers. I made the mistake of ordering what I thought was a pasta soup, but upon tasting it, realized very quickly (thank goodness) that it was tripe. I know my friends and family who enjoy menudo are laughing at me right now, but I just couldn’t do it. The texture between my teeth was a no-go.

We made the trek across town to Vivoli’s, the wonderful gelateria, where I enjoyed the combination of cioccolato and crema l’arancia (orange and cream), and Bill decided to go back to basics with stratiatella and cioccolato. As usual, we enjoyed it. I don’t know what we’re going to do without gelato. Lose a few pounds, perhaps?

We wanted to walk across to the other side of the Arno River, but this time we eschewed the famous Ponte Vecchio for one of the other bridges. It was fun to see Florence from a different angle. We walked along the Arno, past the Ponte Vecchio, and then walked across yet another bridge to head back towards the train station. I told Bill we were walking through areas of Florence that I had never before seen, which was kind of fun. One area had extremely expensive hotels and stores, and I saw a lot of rich older men walking with their very attractive “daughters.” Bill said, “Yeah, right.”

We also walked through an area that was a lot more ethnic than anywhere else we had seen in Florence. There were people of various ethnicities, and a variety of restaurants selling kabobs.

I noticed that by this time I was very tired, though we had walked less than we had on many other occasions. It occurred to me that the effects of the trip have been somewhat cumulative, and I think the weariness is beginning to catch up with me. I think we will take it a bit easy today in preparation for our final leg to France, and particularly Paris.