Firenze

Today we left Venice and hopped on a train to Florence. We got settled into our B&B, grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed to the Bargello Gallery to purchase the Firenze Card (covers 72 hours, 72 museums for €72- a good deal if you are insanely ambitious like I am...). The Gallery has strange hours; it is open the 1st, 3rd, and 5th Sunday's and the 2nd and 4th Mondays, but closed on the other Sundays and Mondays. Today being the 3rd Sunday, we thought they'd be open. Nope. We were not the only tourists looking confused at the closed door and posted hours either.

As we were standing there drops of rain began to fall on us and we decided to change up our plan and head to the San Lorenzo market (an open air market) in case they closed due to rain. Sadly, the market doesn't seem to have many local, traditional leather craftsmen anymore and we weren't tempted by anything. I'm still on a hunt for the perfect pair of Florentine leather gloves though!

We headed across Ponte Veccio passing the gold and silver shops that were first installed here by the Medici's in the 1500's after they kicked out the unappealing meat market. Across the river in the Oltrarno area we set out in search of a few vintage clothing shops I had found online. This was a total bust. One wasn't very good, another was closed because it was Sunday, and the third moved locations and is back on the other side of the river. We were near Gelateria della Passera, which had been recommended by our guidebook, so we stopped in for a couple cones. We were not impressed. The consistency was more like sorbet than gelato and the flavors weren't anything special.

We finally made our way through the back streets to the Pitti Palace. This imposing structure was home to the Medici's and now serves as a museum. By this time it was around 4:00pm. We thought we had planned this out well, visiting the shops first as they might have closed early on Sundays and then visiting the Palace that is open until 6:30pm, with the last entry being at 5:30pm. We had arrived there with plenty of time, right? Wrong. What we didn't realize is that the five areas/museums of the palace all have final entry times of 5:30pm; it didn't mater that you were already in the palace, you had to be in the final area of your visit by 5:30pm. We made it through the Palatine Gallery, the Royal Apartments, and the Costume Gallery, but the Boboli Gardens that we had wanted to view closed just before we got to that entrance.

Karl Lagerfeld photography intervention at the Pitti Palace. I'm not sure I really understand the curatorial concept...

We went back across the Arno river and headed toward the center of town, stopping into some shops along the way. We stopped in Palazzo della Signoria and visited the Palazzo Vecchio. We climbed the 418 steps to the top of the tower at sunset. It was the perfect time to visit!

We climbed back down, took a turn through the museum, and headed out to grab a bit to eat. This was quite an ordeal because everywhere we tried to go either needed a reservation or was closed. We finally found some okay food, and rewarded ourselves with gelato afterward from Gelateria de' Neri. Russ and I both unwittingly picked one of their only two fudge products; the flavors were very good, but the fudge was so overwhelmingly rich that we couldn't finish it.