Arrived in Florence and met our apartment host. This time it was a 1 bedroom apartment that had all that Italian charm. In other words, one of the first things our host made sure to show us was the fuse box in case we shorted out the electric. You just had to love the tiny non functional kitchen. We really enjoyed staying at this one. Again the host took a great amount of time going over the map with us and showing us how Florence is a very walkable city.
Found a nice little restaurant for lunch and I had the peposo with chianti. It’s a pork stew with black pepper and red wine. Florence is also known for it’s steak, hopefully we can give that a try soon.
That night we had tickets for the opera and although, Florence is walkable the opera house is a little further out. So, we looked up to see what bus to take. Epic fail. We couldn’t seem to manage finding the correct bus stop, so got a cab. The opera was Le Boheme and seemed to be well done. They had the English liberatto (subtitles for you non opera goers), so, I was able to follow along. We managed to get the bus back to the hotel fairly easily.
The next day was the Uffizi museum. If you do want to tour this UNESCO art museum, make sure and get tickets in advance. It will give you a timed entrance. We were glad that we had done that after seeing the ticket lines. Inside, the museum is huge and once we left the first couple of rooms the crowd wasn’t too bad. They had works by Rembrandt, Da Vinci, and others, mainly from the Italian Renaissance period. This museum was originally the house of the Medici family. The Medici’s were the founders of Florence and had enough money to even build their own private walkway to their summer place. They were also responsible for bringing Da Vinci and Michelangelo to Florence to study.
Will wanted to see the Galileo museum, which is right around the corner from the Uffizi. They have several exhibits of instruments used from Galileo’s time. They also had some nice exhibits which proved some of Galileo’s discoveries. 
We crossed the Ponte Vecchio bridge. This bridge once was a fish market, where the butchers could filet the fish and toss everything not needed into the river. Now it’s home to fine jewelry shops. It is said to be the best place to buy high quality Italian gold. And is also the only bridge in Florence not bombed by the Germans in WWII. Apparently, the bridge was too narrow for the American tanks to get across, so the Germans left it alone. Lunch was a nice risotto made with the zucchini flower. Will tried the peposo, which was different from the one I had, but still good. Went to the Pitti Palace to tour the Boboli Gardens. This was another home of the Medici family. Great views of Florence from the Gardens.
Our electric night bike ride through Florence was fun. Took me a bit to get the hang of the electric assist on the bike, but then remember my mountain bike story. At least this time, I didn’t break the bike. Makes me wonder why I still continue to sign Will and I up for theses types of tours. Anyway the highlight of the tour besides seeing the sights of Florence at night was the gelato. They even had a gluten free cone. Yeah!!!
