Florence - Day 7

We got back on the road for Florence in the early afternoon. We had 5 pm reseverations to see David at the Accademia. Since Volterra is only about an hour outside of Florence, this left us plenty of time. Or so we thought. Finding Avis in Florence was awful. GPS sent us down streets that were closed for construction or are closed except to resident permit-holders. I was driving, but Bryant was able to figure out enough to adjust for the roads and get where the GPS voice directed us. I had renewed hope, until she abandoned us entirely by triumphantly declaring, "You have arrived at your destination!" when neither the Avis office nor even the street it was on was in sight. From my cell phone I called two numbers I had for Avis in Florence, and neither one worked. At a red light I leaned over and asked a man in the car next to me with his window down. Turns out he was American and helpful, although pressed for time because the light turned green. He said that it was somewhere over there but hard to get to, so at least we knew it existed. We stopped at a cafe and I got out and asked, and a patron walked outside with me to point to a street we should turn on. I thanked him profusely but then due to construction we had a difficult time getting to that street. We had to cross the Arno three times and loop back around to try again, but eventually we did it. I still didn't find it so I got of out the car and asked at a hotel. They said it was very near, and easy to reach by foot but very difficult by car. I left Bryant and the car in the street at the hotel and walked to Avis, and was then able to get better instructions about the one-way streets. When I dropped off the car, it was much more expensive than what I had been quoted in the US and had reconfirmed when we picked up the car in Venice. We were glad to see the last of it. At least we had Volterra.

After haggling (fruitlessly) over the bill and finally ridding ourselves of the car, we walked all the way across Florence to the hotel. We didn't feel like figuring out the buses, so Bryant looked at our map and nagivated through the streets, schlepping all our stuff. The walk was good for us to decompress from the stress of the car. We made it to the hotel in time for a quick shower and a quick beer from the minibar in our room. We were right on time for our 5 pm appointment with David.

David was magnificent, and we stayed there for a while. There were a lot of high school art students sketching the statue.

From the Accademia, we walked over to the Duomo and the Baptistry with its famous doors.





































The Duomo was closed for the evening, but we climbed the 413 steps of the Campanile (bell tower) for some great views of Florence, including the adjacent Duomo. This pre-sunset tower climbing was becoming quite a tradition for us! By now we were completely over the car stress and falling prey to the charms of Florence.























































































aerial view of the Baptistry:




























After the tower we went for a walk. We walked down to the river, and watched the sun setting over the Ponte Vecchio.































We had another delicious meal. We were glad we had made a reservation before climbing the Campanile, because our table on the patio was the last remaining outside table at Antico Restaurante il Sasso di Dante, right across from the Duomo. We lingered a long time over dinner, admiring the Duomo in the declining light, watching the passers-by, and drinking red wine.














The moon was beautiful over the Duomo. Click on the picture to see for yourself.















After dinner we were checking out another restaurant which looked good for dinner the following night. As we read the menu board and discussed it, a couple exiting the restaurant told us it was great. We wound up hanging out with that couple for a while. They were Americans who had moved to Florence for their jobs 2 years ago. They moved from Atlanta! So we had a great chat and they gave us some good recommendations of where to go and what to do.

We finished the night with a delicious gelato, and made our way back to the hotel.