We made more progress toward my goal of trying all of the pastries in Italy today. But we got Maritozzi again because they’re amazing.
We took the bus across the river and up the hill to the piazza Michaelangelo, where he grew up. We had a fantastic view of Florence, and could see a section of the old city wall. We also saw a legit medieval castle in the distance, in the opposite direction from Florence, complete with crenellated turret.
From that height, we walked downhill to the rose garden. It was lovely., with fountains, coi ponds, and shade trees.
Liam found a bunch of lizards, which are different from our lizards at home.
When we got to the bottom, we realized that there was no way out, and that we would have to walk all the way back up and around. It was hot and none of us wanted to do that, so we looked for alternatives. The drop on the other side of the wall down to the street was about four meters. We found a light pole that came up past the top of the wall, so we decided to slide down the pole to the ground.
We stood next to the old city wall, which was taller than it looks in the photos. We talked about how they would have defended the city back when a wall like this and a small group of defenders could repel attacks by whole armies. We also walked through the old gate back into the city proper.
We came across the shop belonging to the artist who modifies the street signs in Florence. A lot of his work was subversive, and there were people sitting around having spirited conversations in Italian.
We bought some stickers, and a shirt for Liam.
It’s so pretty here. Even just walking to lunch is scenic.
We ate lunch at an outdoor table by the Arno River. We tried some new iced tea and a lemon soda, and had a delicious meal. Liam ordered seafood gnocchi, and we all shared a calzone, a pizza, and a salad with pear, pecorino, and honey.
After lunch, we wandered around Oltrarno again. We went up a pathway I saw yesterday, just to see what was up there.
We stopped to check out the contraption builders used way back when to keep building walls from collapsing. They would have one of these on each side of the building, connected by a chain.
We now know the trick to finding good gelato – it’s usually covered behind the counter, not mounded in giant tubs.
There are so many beautiful churches full of art here, but I know the kids don’t want to see a lot. We chose one to visit – Basilica di Santa Croce. It’s the burial place of Michaelangelo, Galileo, Dante Alighieri, and a lot of noble Florentines. The building itself was gorgeous.
There were lots of people buried in the floor. These were often decorated with carved marble and caste bronze showing the family crest.
It’s a shame that Michaelangelo couldn’t do his own tomb. Who else could make something worthy of him?
Galileo’s tomb was thematically appropriate.
Many of these names were unknown to us, but the people were clearly important in their day.
Next on our agenda: we were all feeling a shortage of cats in our lives, so we went to the Firenze Cat cafe.
Walking back to our apartment, we passed one of those photo booths. So we crammed our whole family into it like a clown car and took some pictures. Bill is lost in the dark in a couple of them, but it was a fun moment.
We had dinner at the restaurant below our apartment. It was fantastic, and I wish we had eaten here earlier in our stay so we could have come back and tried more things. The risotto and the minestrone were delicious. I wanted to try the house made four cheese gnocchi, but sadly I only have one stomach. I guess this is why the ancient Romans had vomitoriums.
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