Back to amazing

Ok, where were we……

I was great again yesterday! Seemed like the only residual effect was wanting a different purse, one I could put under my coat. So at our first stop by the apartment, I switched to the one Mike had bought for our passports.

Seriously, doesn’t this hundreds year old AirBnb just make you feel better?

We stayed in until like 10 a.m. because it was in the 30’s and I refused to go out until it hit 40 haha. But finally it did and we set out. There was a bitter wind but the sun was quickly fixing the temperature some. By noon we had found a tiny restaurant that Mike had learned had been in the family for over 100 years. I was feeling so much better (normal??) that I told Mike today he got to make all the choices, since the last 36 hours were all about me. But the restaurant only took cash and we forgot to bring any, so we kept a’wandering.

We found the street that Katie lived on when she was here for a semester in 2012 and took a cheesy picture of Mike pointing at the street sign to send to her. There was a darling restaurant on the street, so we had nice hot spaghetti, Mike’s was Bolognese (tomatoes and basil) and mine was a Pecorino cheese sauce with black pepper; both were the perfect el dente. Yes, they were so good!

We have both lived up to our commitment to replacing things, not hanging on to things. In Formia, I bought 2 new pairs of jeans and ditched my old ones. Mike left his worn out hiking boots in Rome and we were gonna replace them in Palermo. Whatever. Think of all the money they lost…….

Anyway we found a men’s store yesterday that had cool tennis shoes in the window. It turned out the entire store was all stuff from the movie Top Gun–jackets, shirts, shoessssss…and yep Mike got some shoes for 50 euros. The brand is Avirex. Inside the pocket of some pants there was a huge tag with a diagram and detailed instructions for how to sew on a button. Huh.

The Duomo for which is the center of everything in Florence is literally 100 feet from our door. Her full name is Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore. It was started in 1296 and completed in 1436, with a delay in the 1300’s due to the Black Death pandemic. Although there were crowds yesterday, we noticed there was no line to walk inside.

The dome itself is a masterpiece. You can go alllllllll the way to the very tippy top for a fee. Katie and I did that in 2012 and it was weird because the entire climb you are sandwiched on crazy old stairs between the massive dome painting below and the outside dome….

I was just as glad Mike didn’t want to climb the dome.

Back to shopping….I have made a new decision haha….I am going to buy slippers. Two pairs of socks on these tile floors and I still have to either wear my hiking boots or I’ve taken to carrying the bath mat towel around to stand on. Mike was sure he saw slippers in a store window the night before so we were on the lookout.

Florence has a population of 710,000, compared with Rome at 4.3 million. The city is very walkable, with farrrrrrr fewer cars, scooters, buses. We decided to spend a few hours in the famous Uffizi Museum. Established in 1581 (!!!) it has an incredible collection of Renaissance art and statuary, much of which belonged to the Medici family which had deep roots in Florence. This painting of Alessandro de’Medici from 1534 even shows the Duomo in the distance.

No luck with the slippers yet, but we did wind up at the Ponte Vecchio, a very famous bridge on the Arno River.

Mike was really cold last night, which is very unusual for him. Frankly I figured he was now feeling all the strain I felt the day before. He literally wanted to just get another microwave dinner and go home, so we did. We talked to the kids and Rocky and worked on plans for our next move, already coming up tomorrow (Sunday).

We stopped long enough to admire the Duomo at night. No words.