Today was another day where everything seemed to work out just right. We drove into Florence to the parking garage we had identified before hand. (This was VERY important because most of Florence is pedestrian only and inaccessible by car without a permit, and yes, we’re expecting a ticket in the mail when we get home). We walked the few blocks to the Galleria dell’ Academia, for which we had purchased tickets a few days earlier online. (Also important-you don’t get in without advanced tickets). On the way there we saw this quaint little unassuming church….ahem.

Cathedral of Santa Maria Fiore

More Cathedral

Us in front of the Cathedral

Actually, this was the Cathedral of Santa Maria Fiore. One of the doors sported a series of gold panels each depicting a scene from the bible. Here’s God delivering the 15….no, 10 commandments to Moses.

Gold panel on door

On we went to the Galleria, and we got right in with our advanced tickets. It was filled with Medieval and Renaissance art. The very early Medieval pieces, like this one…

Early Medieval Art

were from the 1200’s-1400’s and were interesting because of how stylized and filled with symbolism they were. They hadn’t yet figured out how to accurately represent the human form in painting, and everything about it had significance-the hand gestures, the direction of the gaze, the color of the robes, the division between right/left, for/background. Interesting. The Renaissance art was so profoundly different in it’s fluidity, style, and accuracy of human form, but still virtually every image was Christian in nature.

Renaissance piece

But then came what we had come there to see. The remarkable figure of David…

Michelangelo’s stunning David

I know you’ve all seen 100 pictures just like this one, but I took this one with my own hand!

Also in this building was a musical instrument museum. They had a 1-string bass that was played with a bow, and by thumping it with your foot…

One string wonder

And a couple of hurdy-gurdy’s…

Hurdy Gurdy

As well as this collection of wind instruments that we though Dennis would find interesting!

Wind instrument collection.

This museum also sported dozens of marble statues and the plaster casts used to make them. One display was like the outlet mall of marble busts…

Buy two get one free?

We left the museum and walked back toward the car past some artwork by the famous graffiti artist, Banksey….

Banksey art

and past a Medieval era McDonald’s…

We didn’t realize how old these were…

And past the tiniest yet, of all tiny cars….

Go ahead and try to get in, Gary

And had lunch where we got our traditional lunch-time photo of Lorinda with a cool building in the background…

The traditional lunchtime photo

We got back to the car, paid, pulled out of the garage, and it started to rain. Perfect timing!

Our next plan was to head way north to a village on the shore of Lake Garda in Northern Italy. Our intention was to 1) get a lot closer to Munich for our flight home, and 2) take advantage of an activity in this village that we’ll either surprise you all with in our next blog entry (weather permitting), or we’ll have to write to tell you the disappointment of not being able to do it (weather not permitting). Upon arriving in the village of Malcesine we got a room from one of the nicest hotel clerks yet, and discovered this view out from our balcony…

Our balcony view

Then we went down to have dinner on the patio overlooking the lake. Near the end of dinner this polite guest joined us…

My poor broken little friend

She had a badly broken leg, and was brave enough to hobble up to my chair. The broken leg bought her most of two rolls of bread, which she was willing to take right from my hand. Whenever I paused too long from feeding her she would remind me with a QUACK! To get me back to the important business at hand.

Tomorrow we’ll enjoy our last day in Italy, and our last full day of our honeymoon. What an amazing adventure this has been.