Florence, Italy

We arrived in Florence after all the sights had closed for the night, so after checking in to our Pension, we went for a walk. We got a great look at the outside of the Duomo, and walked through the Piazza del Duomo in air that finally seemed cool. We did our best to jump-start our appreciation of renaissance art with a visit to the Uffizi the next morning, but we spent more time outside on line looking at the Arno river than we did inside before reaching, again, our art-saturation points. Knowing that we weren't likely to be back in Florence again any time soon, we had to go see David at the Galleria Dell'Accademia. It's a stunning work, of course, but the rest of the gallery was wasted on us.

So back out into the city we went, where our architectural senses, not yet at overload, could be indulged. We saw the Duomo again by daylight, and went inside. (The outside is far more intriguing.) Our last stop in Florence was the Ponte Vecchio. Jewelry prices in lire look so outrageous that we didn't even think about buying any.

Florence is a fascinating and beautiful city, especially for art lovers, and we probably would have enjoyed it more had we paced ourselves better. But, we wanted to keep moving, so away we went, off to Venice.