Day 3
Aaah...slept in til 8:30. Started our day out at the Medici Chapel where there were more gorgeous Michelangelo sculptures in a gigantic room with colored patterned marble from floor to ceiling with paintings around the periphery.  

                                                                                

Onward to the Uffizi, a simple path that should have led us directly to the museum but instead we found ourselves lost in the Piazza Reppublica retracing our steps several times before finally arriving at the Uffizi.   The Uffizi is a daunting museum that requires HOURS to slog through with some of us feeling the slogging more than others. Incredibly beautiful art but SOOOO much of it!  We earned a brief rest at our apartment after all the art because we had concert tickets in the evening. At the end of an early dinner we asked that the restaurant call a taxi for us. There were NO taxis available so we made a frantic run to the taxi stand at the train station 10 minutes of rapid walking away only to find a line of about 100 people waiting for a taxi. We were anxiously chattering about missing our concert when the woman ahead of us asked if we were going to the concert at the Opera house. It turned out she worked there, invited us to share a cab, called ahead to tell them we were coming and when we arrived, hustled us to our seats a minute before the concert began. Whew!! Disaster averted. Concert was great though Anabel was particularly dismayed by the Shostakovich symphony after intermission that did not leave us humming a happy tune.                                       

Day 2 Who knew it was possible to walk 500 miles in Florence in one day??? We started at the Central Market after all of us awakening at 3:30 AM and making a fabulous breakfast since our stomachs were still on PDT. The market was phenomenal!! A huge building with many, many vendors of everything food. We looked at everything in the market and made purchases of bread, cheese, salami (yeah, more salami and cheese because who has too much cheese and salami), more eggs, olives, wine, fruit and salad makings.  

                                      

 Then it was time for our very first cappucino in our friendly neighborhood "bar." After dropping off our purchases we went to a leather store where Anabel had instructions to buy a jacket for her son. We bought said jacket and chatted with the owner who recommended a neighborhood trattoria for lunch. Fortified by our excellent pasta and wine, we were ready to begin our museum marathon.
We picked up our Firenze Cards that gave us "bypass the line" access and started at Santa Maria Novella church with some views of gorgeous stained glass and renaissance paintings. The Accademia was next after a meander on the way enhanced by a church bell concert near the duomo that marked what was a totally random hour and a beautiful piano music emanating from an apartment that we passed. Michelangelo did not disappoint with his spectacular David and his Pieta'

along with the other wonderful sculptures.
 Amazingly, it was now late in the day, everything was now closed in the way of museums, we were exhausted from having been up since 3:30 AM so we came home for a home made dinner....cheese, salami, big wonderful salad from the Central Market, bread, and wine. We congratulated ourselves for staying awake until 11PM and called it a day.

Day 1 The arrival in Florence had virtually immediate drama after a long boring flight, a 45 min hike through the Frankfurt airport to our connecting flight to Florence gate and an uneventful flight to Florence. The baggage arrived, no problem, we went to the bank machine for Euros and I withdrew Euros. Anabel attempted to withdraw cash and the machine ATE HER CARD! There was no bank, just a machine and the lady at the airport information desk confidently assured us that there was NOTHING that could be done.  A minor meltdown, reassurance from Annette and me that we could bankroll Anabel and we left for our apartment, settled in and headed out to explore and stave off the exhaustion of 24 hours with no sleep.   

 Dining room of our wonderful apartment

                                            

                                                            Living room                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Our neighborhood is away from the main tourist madness and we went out to explore and buy a few groceries. A couple blocks from our home we stumbled across the oldest church in Florence, the Basilica of San Lorenzo built in the year 373!  Then we rounded a corner and saw the Duomo for the first time.  Annette swooned in ecstasy supported by us. We wandered around the Duomo a bit, found the grocery store and THANKFULLY an excellent gelateria where we bought enough gelato for dessert after a dinner of salami, cheese, bread and wine, followed very soon after by a 9PM bedtime.

Basilica of San Lorenzo built in 373