Florence is full of handsome, fit, strong, and most importantly, naked men. I thought it was pretty good. David (by Michelangelo) was obviously my favorite, larger than life and pretty damn fine. It’s a pity we only got to see the copy, we discovered too late that you need to book three days in advance to get into the museums so we missed the real David. Luckily we had friends who happened to see both and said there was little difference between them except the setting which made me feel better, especially since the fake David is in the intended location and not stuck in a museum.

We spent quite a bit of time in Florence, about 4 days, which worked out well because we were a little burnt out and needed some down-time. Our hotel was in this great old building from the 16th century, with nice 15 foot ceilings. The location was a bit odd, though convenient due to its proximity to the train station, but across the street from Cartier, next door to Prada and Gucci. Not bad for 90 euros.

Looking down from our hotel room.

The HUGE doors to our hotel that I couldn’t open without help.

In addition to meeting up with Eric every now and then, we also met up with Fred (a college friend of Phil’s) who was in town for a Neuroscience conference. We met for dinner and had a good time with him and his colleagues from the conference.

Over 4 days we did a few key sites but highlights include eating and drinking venues. The first we found was a cafe in a little laneway that offered a significant selection of really good wines, excellent meat and cheese plates, and other yummy goodies, including one of the best Brucettas eva! BTW, the quality of tomatoes in Italy is phenomenal — and because I’m writing this from Greece, I can also say thery are excellent in Greece too.) It was also at this fine establishment we had a New York experience and sat next to Charlotte’s second husband from Sex in the City. Many hours were spent whiling away the time here.

Another cool find was an authentic, hole-in-the-wall wine bar that had been there forever, was extremely popular and had bar-style seating for only about 8 people, and so always had crowds spilling into the street. The wine was excellent, the snacks/tapas were fabulous, and the atmosphere really friendly and lively.

Apart from eating and drinking, we did see some sights, the crowds were challenging but we still persevered and made it to the Uffizi museum, containing MANY scuptures, mostly of naked men, and of course many renaissance paintings. The Duomo in Florence was a unique building, different to the majority of other churches we had seen so far in Europe. It was strange to look at because it appears flat (like a picture and not three dimensional) and is really huge and the exterior is all marble, amazing to imagine how they could source so much of it. Due to long lines and closure the day we decided to brave the crowds, we didn’t end up climbing the dome of the Duomo but climbed the campanile instead for excellent views.