Florence is the birth place of the Renaissance art and architecture. One of its most iconic sights is the Duomo, a cathedral with a terracotta-tiled dome which took 6 centuries to build. The 1 hr. lines and the 38C temp🥵 prevented me from going inside.😔
Today was Gallery Day and I visited both the Galleria dell’Accademia which displays Michelangelo’s towering “David” sculpture and the Uffizi Gallery exhibits of Botticelli’s famous “The Birth of Venus” and “Primavera“. The gift shops all had varying sizes and colours of Big D’s and little D’s which helped me better proportion David’s hand size.
The Ponte Vecchio is a medieval stone arch bridge, built in 1345, over the dirty brown Arno River. There are very expensive jewellery shops, art dealers and souvenir sellers built along it. As I crossed the bridge I was humming “O Mio Babbino Caro” and thinking a leap off of this bridge likely would not prove fatal.
I sampled Aperol, the honey and orange -coloured Florentine aperitif.
The birth of modern gelato dates back to Sicily in the Middle Ages but Florence, in the 16th century, helped share this dessert with France.
Caterina de Midici was so in love with the fruits, sugar and ice dessert that she took her personal gelato maker to France with her and the rest, as they say is history. 🥰
Diane’s Trips 