Our Trip to Europe

Day 26 – Venice to Florence

Another early morning. Left Venice by vaporetto and then by bus and headed for Florence. It was only a three hour drive but we stopped at an Auto Grille for lunch. The rest stops in Europe are something else. They have grocery stores, general stores and restaurants in them. You usually have to pay for the use of the restrooms but they remain pretty clean because of it. We have been warned, however, to always have Kleenex with us as there is a good chance in Italy that you may not have toilet paper.

We arrived in Florence and walked to our hotel, Hotel California. There was a lift, elevator, for our luggage but we had to go up several flights of steps to get to our rooms. This time our rooms were air-conditioned. Our room had a small balcony and overlooked the Duomo.

We gathered to go to the Accademia to see David. We got headsets so that we could hear what our guide had to say and we walked over to the Accademia. Seeing David for the first time isn’t something you can explain and this is being said by someone who isn’t really a great art lover. There is a long hallway leading up to David standing under a glass dome. Along the hallway are sculptures that were also done by Michaelangelo but not finished. Davis is about 14 feet tall and absolutely amazing. We had some time to see him, the prisoners which are the unfinished sculptures and a few other parts of the museum. We then gathered for a walking tour of Florence seeing many of the major sights and then walked over to our restaurant for a group meal.

We had two kinds of wine, a sampler plate of pasta, steak Florentine, roasted potatoes and then they brought out the dessert cart. It was a fantastic meal land a great time had by the entire group. We walked back to our hotel and called it a night as we have another early morning tomorrow.