A day in Firenze

Thursday I went for a day trip with Annie and Mike to Florence to see an exhibition at the Strozzi Palazzo entitled Money and Beauty.  I love going out with them because they like lots of coffees in lovely places.  I know this sounds a contradiction of terms but our first one, with a brioche was at the railway station!  The food there is really good and inexpensive.

The train journey was two hours and very comfortable.  We took a taxi to Piazza San Marco, I remembered there was a lovely Viennese type cafe there.

These are the beautiful amaryllis on the bar.

Here are the long and the short of it!  Annie and I.

We then went our separate ways for an hour and a half.  I went to the Convent San Marco to look at Fra Angeleco's frescoes.  He painted a wonderful Annunciation at the top of the stairs and scenes from the life of Christ in each of the sixty monk's cells.  How amazing to have one of his paintings on your bedroom wall!  But I guess life in the convent would be hard and very cold.

Walking down the Via Cavour to meet up with Annie and Mike again.  The bell tower of the duomo above the buildings.

This ring to tether your horse is on the wall at the Medici Palazzo.  Also see there would have been a torch coming out of the top.

I had a walk through the market and was accosted by a trader selling leather coats and went into his shop to try one on.  He was so full of bull s**t.  He was sure my parents were of Italian descent I was so beautiful!  They are very clever and he gave me a coat to try which fit perfectly.  When I asked the price is was Euros 685.  I winced.  He said how much would I pay?  I said E300.  I knew immediately I had pitched too high.  The price at my still reluctance came down to E240!

Mike found us a great place for lunch, inexpensive and full of locals.  I had chicken curry!

The Duomo and Baptistry.

The exhibition was very interesting, how people got around not being able to receive interest for loaning money, the church was against that.  Usurers were evil people!  There was a computer game through the exhibition to see if you could make money by moving goods through different countries.  Annie and I made a profit, Mikes ship was attacked off the coast of Africa - still the same today.

After a lovely tea in the cafe we headed back to the station and returned home, a wonderful day out.