We woke up much too early and ran ragged all day.

After breakfast, we walked by a painted facade and decided to shop at the open market near Piazza Republica. It was really cold (it only got into the 50sF and was really windy) so Aviva bought some purple globes and I bought some half gloves.

We went to the Museo Duomo, which we last visited in 2007.

We stopped at Caffe Duomo for a snack and then headed towards Santa Croce. We wanted to stop at the Florence Municipal Museum but they aren’t open on Fridays (one things we’ve learned, if you really want to visit someplace call before you leave on vacation so you can plan for when places are open). We stopped at a few painted facades.

Detail of a painted facade

We finally reached Santa Croce and had lunch at Boccadama which is right on the square – we thought it would be lousy because it looked touristy, but it was quite good. We both had minestrone (tasted freshly made) and chicken caccatorie.

Boccadama card

Then we visited Santa Croce, which we visited before in 2000 and in 2007. Santa Croce is one of the largest church complexes in Florence. I watched a fellow repairing a floor tile for a while.

[youtube qpPjv8e8478&hl Repairing the floor of Santa Croce]

I also caught a little bit of an Italian school lecture on the church.

[youtube j5u8WJ-EmmM&hl Part of a lecture to school children]

We then shopped a little and then visited the Badia Fiorentina which has a painting by Lippi (no pictures allowed); to kill the 10 minutes before the church opened, we shopped in their little store which was run by the nuns – we talked with three of them and they are all quite happy to meet us.

We ate dinner at Coquinarius again and it was again superb.