As expected, everything went smoother, since Bella and I knew how to do things like catch the tram. We got to the Duomo, the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore and marveled at it's enormity and ornate decoration. Like, what kind of church has paintings on the outside? This one.
We got coffee at a little café. As we were leaving, we spotted a girl with a Neptune Beach shirt and had a small chat with her. She was a student living in Florence and she said meeting other people from Florida "made her day."
We went down the street that had the places that sold those sandwiches we missed out on. The place, called All'antico Vinaio, was open for business with no lines, so even though it was a little early for lunch, we bought one to share. It was called the Favolosa, and was labeled as the "best in the shop." We watched the guy build it, slathers of a homemade pecorino cream, an artichoke cream, a generous layer of warm Tuscan salami called sbriciolona, and a big handful of what looked like mushrooms but turned out to be (to Bella's relief) something else. We thought it was maybe olives, but checking the website later on, it was spicy eggplant. All wrapped in warm fresh focaccia. It was great, and would have been worth the wait.
In the Piazza Vecchio, a large military band was playing Hollywood themes (playing stuff the tourists would recognize, like Rocky, Pirates of the Caribbean, James Bond). One particular highlight was Bridge on the River Kwai, complete with a guy whistling.
As we continued to walk around Florence, we made our way to the Ponte Vecchio, which is a memorable bridge with shops actually on the bridge. Seemed like many of them were jewelry shops. We stopped at one picturesque spot, and a sudden feeling of deja vu hit me. I quickly realized that the exact spot we were standing at was the spot that a photo was taken that I've used to teach Photoshop for years. Having used that photo as an example for multiple classes over six years, it was bizarre to suddenly be standing in that same spot. Here's the photo from the Photoshop lesson:
And here's us there:
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| This is the other side of the bridge, the view I'd never seen before. |
We met up with Sofia and Anna at their rental place and then Bella went to a museum with them, and Cristina and I went back to the Duomo to go inside. While we waited in line, we chatted with a few American high school students who were there on a four-week cultural-exchange trip. It only took about 15 minutes to get inside the cathedral. Surprisingly, it wasn't super ornate on the inside. Dare I say it was kind of plain. But the outside was one of the more fancy cathedrals I'd seen, so I guess they went for outward opulance instead.
After the cathedral, we met back up with the girls at a cafe near their apartment and had some cold drinks in the air conditioning. Then we grabbed some french fries from a small shop. We went our separate ways again, because Cristina had one more adjustment scheduled with the chiropractor. So Bella went with the girls to the botanical gardens and Cristina and I went home. We had leftovers for dinner and then drove to the chiropractor for the adjustment.
As it got close to sunset, we drove up to the pretty view that every single tourist goes to watch the sunset at. Yep, it was crowded. Took a while to find a parking spot, but we got there in time to take some amazing shots.
Back at home, I worked on my blog. The plan was for Sofia and Anna to take Bella to a nightclub called the Space Bar, and then around 2 am, I'd drive into the city center and pick her up. But the bar was closed, so she was ready for a pickup by 12:30. It was weird driving into the city center that late. Almost no people. It was like the cool, dark ghost town version of the hot, bustling city we'd walked around all day with thousands of other tourists.
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