On our first full day in Florence (known in Italy as Firenze) we went to the Uffizi gallery.  This famous gallery has hundreds of masterpieces – here we learned that some of our group had a lower tolerance for art than others!  You weren’t allowed to take pictures here…check out here, here and here for some of the masterpieces we saw.

After a few hours here we walked across the Ponte Vecchio and stumbled on a loud and exuberant parade – we think maybe this was for Epiphany.  Ponte Vecchio is a medieval bridge with shops across it – historically gold merchants, now fancy jewellery shops.

 

 

 

 

 

Our last stop of the day was the Galleria Academia, where we saw Michaelangelo’s famous statue “David”.  Again, we weren’t allowed to take photos…but we were allowed to take photos of “Pink David” outside, who was pretty cool.  (Earlier that day we had also seen Fake David outside the Palazzo Vecchio where the real one used to stand.)

 

 

 

On our second day in Florence we went to the Duomo (cathedral).  Here, Reubs and I climbed over 400 steps to see stunning views of Florence while the mums stayed below.  Our next stop was to climb the bell tower (another 400 odd steps – I was feeling it after that!) All this exercise called for a hearty lunch so we went to a cute local place for a delicious meal before heading back to see the beautiful baptistery which stands in front of the cathedral.  After that we took a walk through the markets, finishing at the Lindt shop (not Italian in the slightest, but delicious!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On our last day in Florence we went to the Palazzo Pitti, a complex of museums located in an old palace.  Here we went to see the treasury, the palace apartments and the art collection (Lynette and I also enjoyed the costume museum while our slower art loving companions made their way through the art collection).  After a short stroll in the gardens we went back across the Ponte Vecchio to the town hall, where Reubs and I climbed the tower. We also saw a Donatello sculpture which completed our set of Ninja turtles!