Sunday in Florence

We woke to a sunny morning in Florence today and were nearly late meeting my parents for breakfast. The 'rents were bleary eyed and sleep deprived while Adam and I felt refreshed and ready to meet the day. There appears to be a difference in noise level based on whether your room is in the front or back of the hotel. Ours is in the back and we slept with a light breeze and the soothing sounds of the iPad Dream machine. Theirs is in the front and they enjoyed late night sounds of not only drunken British stag do's but also of an angry florentine woman who, in attempt to restore peace, threw bottles out her front window at the younguns. Did I mention she did this sans clothing? Our hotel owner attributes this, er, interesting behaviour to the fact that said woman is unmarried. Ha.

Once outside the hotel we explored a small flea Market before heading to a tiny cafe for panini and yogurt. Adam was very hungover and I casually mentioned to my dad that Ads wasn't raised in a family that encouraged alcoholism the way that ours does...he agreed to take it easy on ordering so many litres of wine. We strolled through Florence window shopping and tried to guess the sites. My family was so eager to learn and yet we had no guide or guidebook, so I felt obliged to make things up as we walk. They eventually realised I am full of shit but it didn't stop me pontificating on why I think the church bells all go off at 10:30 am or how we've just stumbled upon Julius caesar's secret meditation bunker.

Could the Scudieri's here be long lost relatives? We have a few cousins with the same name in Cleveland...

Eventually the parents left for a real tour - the academia - and Adam and I were left to fend for ourselves. We were feeling parched in the 90-degree heat so we headed into a local grocery store so that I could do a quick store check and Adam could get some iced tea. It was all just too exhausting, so we headed back to the hotel to nap for an hour before lunch. I felt slightly guilty about this. We are in Florence and we're taking a nap? Shouldn't we be exploring ancient bricks, poking our heads into churches, something? I've been here before but Adam hasn't. He's not much of a tour person and I realise I'm just not interested in standing in large crowds of people, led by some over excited person who's carrying a stick with a ribbon on it, to learn about where DaVinci took a crap. I'm also slightly disturbed to find that Florence is almost as touristy as Barcelona. There are less signs for full English breakfasts here and you can still get a good meal (not the case in Bartha) but I've read that for every florentine in this city, there are fourteen tourists. Fourteen! And that figure is old so I'm sure it's a lot more now. Was it this crazy the first time I was here or was I just a lot more naive?

David's penis was EVERYWHERE. Tourists love David's penis.

Graffiti was also everywhere. Some of it I liked. At any rate, we eventually finished visiting the museum of napping and met Dad and Pam outside the Duomo amidst a crowd of starry eyed, Popsicle toting children and parents. I've noticed that when people eat ice cream, they tend to lose all sense of direction, wandering aimlessly and inadvertently swiping innocent passersby with streaky bits of soft serve. We hightailed it out of there and went back to the grocery store to get fixins for a picnic! We hadn't brought a guidebook with us but our hotel had a list of suggested activities, and Boboli Gardens was one of the places recommended for a visit between 1-4 pm. Perfect for dining al fresco. We loaded up on foccacia, mozzarella, prosciutto, tomatoes, and olive oil and began the twenty minute walk towards the gardens. We stopped to take pictures of the David replica, the Ponte Vecchio bridge (this bridge reminds me more of The Chong in cincinnati than something that should be in a beautiful old city such as Florence), and finally the Palazzo Piti. The map said the gardens should be close by, so we kept walking, and walking, and walking. There was no break in the wall around the gardens, I was getting progressively hungrier, and the prosciutto package was filling up with condensation. Ew. We finally found the entrance to the gardens, which had a huge gate, a bulldog-like security guard, and two sad-faced backpackers walking away from it all. Apparently there is a €9 charge just to enter. Are you kidding? The only green space in this city has an entrance fee?!

Needless to say, we didn't go in, and we ended up having our picnic next to the stone wall by Palazzo Piti. There was a stone ledge for us to use as a 'counter' where we sliced up tomatoes, cheese, and bread for the sandwiches. It seemed a really strange place for a picnic but it was good people watching and we attracted a few other weary walkers to come sit in our shady little patch.

Every good lunch deserves a gelato, so we all grabbed cones before dropping Dad and Pam off at the Uffizi for the next tour. Adam and I made grand plans to drop our backpack off at the room, grab a quick beer, then climb Giotto's Tower. When we got to the room Adam decided to have just a quick sleep before heading back out. This visit to the museum of napping lasted three hours and I finally had to wait the poor guy up to go to dinner! My little Britishman is not used to the heat and/or trips abroad with so many Ives...

We headed back out around 8 to a restaurant right around the corner - Zio Gigi. It was a nice mix of Florentines and tourists, the menu offered choice but still felt decisive (it's never a good sign when the menu is more than 2 pages), and the owner was walking around singing and handing out free shots of something that smelled like uzo. Nice. We had bruschetta and beef carpaccio to start, and plenty of house wine. I decided to break away from the pasta train and ordered entrecôte al gorgonzola for the main, which was a tasty bit of steak topped with a thick piece of gorgonzola cheese and a lovely cream sauce. I was very grateful for the free shot of whatever it was after dinner. It burned but it felt like it was cutting through all the naughty stuff I had just eaten!

 We were too full and too tired for dessert, so we crashed around 10:30. Adam fell asleep straight away so I read a Bill Bryson book that I found in the hallway until the mosquitoes grew too annoying and I turned out the light.