If I had to sum up the early morning of our second day in Florence, it would be "walking to places that weren't open". Our first destination was Orsanmichele, originally a granary that was converted into a church for the guilds. There was a long winding set of stairs that went up to an attached museum—those of us who hoofed it all the way up discovered that the museum was closed. Before we did any more sightseeing, my father and I went to "firenze online" where we geeked and sent some e-mails. Sad? Well, yes. I found it more than a little amusing, though, that my mother was just as excited that we could send e-mails as we were. ("Send your aunt some mail and ask her the following questions...")
When we regrouped, it had gotten a little warmer and—for the first time our entire trip—it was sunny! Melissa finally was able to take off her leopard print jacket, which was a little unfortunate because it was really easy to spot her in a crowd when she had it on. We walked over to Piazza Santa Croce, which has yet another large old church. Michelangelo's, Galileo's, and Machiavelli's tombs are all in Santa Croce. Naturally, Michelangelo's tomb was closed for renovation. (Were they adding in air conditioning? I don't think I want to know.)
Burning out on churches, we headed back to and over the Arno River. At the south edge of Florence is the Piazza Michelangelo, which is high up on a hill and overlooks all of Florence. It's traditionally where tour busses stop on their way into Florence, and it's easy to see why. You can see all the red rooftops spread out for miles—well worth the steep climb to get there! Amusingly, on the way back down we ran into an American couple who were from Rockville, Maryland, which is another suburb of Washington DC and about ten minutes away from where I live.
We had dinner at a restaurant that Melissa's dentist recommended. (Her dentist goes to Florence on a regular basis, apparently. I suspect Melissa may have financed several of those trips on her own.) The food was great... the service was not. Italians generally start off with a pasta dish and then have a main course after it. Our eating habits being different, we usually ended up each ordering just a pasta dish or just a main course, not both. Our waiter took great offense at this, however, and got downright rude. (This was a restaurant right off the Duomo, so it wasn't as if this was some small little restaurant that tourists never visited.) He deliberately ignored us, brought the food out in shifts, and was snippy. Have I mentioned that a tip is automatically included it most Italian restaurants? We were not amused, needless to say. After dinner we went to Vivoli's for gelato. All of the guidebooks say that this is the best place in Italy. They aren't kidding—I had some rice-flavored gelato which was out of this world, tasting like the best rice pudding I've ever had, but in gelato form. Walking back to Hotel Bretagna, we heard what sounded like a string symphony coming from down the street. It turned out to be one man who was playing the violin (with some recorded accompaniment) in a Piazza right next to the Arno River. We sat down for a while and listened to him play, and it was absolutely wonderful. The Piazza's architecture provided perfect acoustics, and the shadows off the Arno splashing onto the walls gave it a surreal look. (It made me think of somehow being in a sunken cathedral, removed from the rest of the world.) This would have been incredibly romantic if I hadn't been with my family.
My last Florence experience was actually the early morning of Day Seven before we went to the train station. I got up a little early and headed across the Arno to where I'd seen another location of fionline. I sent off a couple more e-mails and used CNN's website to check the weather for Venice and Lake Como (cloudy and rainy—WHERE DID THE SUN GO?!?!?!?). Afterwards I decided to find an ATM to get some more money and had to head into the city (on the far side of the Arno) a couple of blocks to find one. This is where I ran into trouble. Rather than just retracing my steps exactly, I headed directly for the Arno, or so I thought. I've always prided myself on having a good sense of direction, and thought it would be child's play to get back to the Arno, at which point it would be easy to head back to the hotel. Instead I got hopelessly lost, wandering further and further off the beaten path. I finally decided that the direction I was heading in was wrong and turned 90 degrees. Sooner or later if I kept doing this I would have to hit the Arno River. This worked pretty soon—as I'd finally suspected, I had been walking parallel to the Arno rather than toward it. I was also a good ten minutes walk further down the Arno than I needed to be, the Ponte Vecchio a small speck on the horizon. This was the only time I'd gone walking in Florence without a map—I learned my lesson! Not the most graceful way to end my stay in this nice city, without a doubt.
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