We got up late and headed out to Santa Croce, which is a huge church built in the 1200s/1300s. On the way we had lunch at a lousy place (we were hungry and in a hurry, a bad travel combination).

We got out late (we’ve given up trying to get going early – being in an apartment makes it easier to hang around somehow). We walked down a few shopping streets, grabbed lunch, and found some really interesting stores (one that specialized in lighting and a rubber duck shop, for example). The lighting store (Controluce) […]

We got out a little earlier today. We started with San Lorenzo and it’s library (which was designed by Michelangelo). The cathedral’s face was also designed by Michelangelo but never applied so it looks quite raw from the outside. The line for the Duomo was short so we decided to walk through. To me, the […]

Yet another late start – it’s become standard, we get up and eat a leisurely breakfast and then go out for the afternoon. Today Aviva and I went to the Duomo Museum, which has been complete remodeled. It is now really modern and wonderful, they’ve got a multi-floor model of the Duomo showing key sculptures. […]

We got up very late and grabbed a quick lunch and headed to Santa Maria Novella. It’s a large church with great frescoes by Ghirlandaio (Michelangelo apprenticed with him) and Lippi. We also walked around the cloisters with severely damaged frescoes from Ucello. Then we shopped at Santa Maria Novella Farmacia which goes back to […]

As usual we got out late. We walked down to the Museo Nazionale del Bargello and checked out the sculpture, then tried to get into Santa Croce – we were too late, services had already started. So we shopped a little, had dinner and headed back to the apartment.

This day we had a 2P ticket to the Ufici, which means office in Italian. We got an incredibly slow start – my throat is still sore and Aviva didn’t sleep well. So we ended up rushing out at about 1:30, grabbed a fast lunch at Move On, a combination record store and pub. The […]

We got a late start – my throat is sore and scratchy and neither of us slept especially well. We decided to do some shopping, so we went to some stores Aviva identified, ending at Aviva’s favorite jewelry store and I at the Florence Apple Store. Aviva found all kinds of neat things including a […]

We set off on Sunday Sep. 10 – and made it as far as LAX. Alitalia moved our flight to the next day. And they did it very badly – we spent all day at the airport to learn that we should have just gone home and returned. They had no staff that knew anything […]