On the third day of our trip, we woke up at 8:30 to go to the nearby archeaological museum. It was ok but most of the explanations were written in Italian and we were hungry because we didn’t eat breakfast. We then got a quick sandwich at the OK Cafe. We walked to the Ponte Vecchio area and tried to shop, but we didn’t find much of anything. We had to call the dinner restaurant to confirm, and had to find a phone and use our phone card. There were surprisingly few pay phones around and most did not work. This is probably due to cell phones, which are everywhere in Italy. We ate lunch at Vecchi Sopori and had pasta w/tomato, and pasta with sausage and beans (which is a traditional tuscan meal).

We then went to the Accademia Museum (which we also booked in advance) and saw Michealangelo’s David. The statue is so big that you can see the veins on his hand. We were really impressed. The museum was small, so we spent only a short time there. By the statue of David, there was an Italian woman trying to take pictures and was arguing loudly with the guard. It was typical Italian behavior and I loved it.

Since it was really hot the whole time, we kept buying bottles of water to carry around. Most of the time the water was relatively expensive. We figured out after a while that the supermarkets were the best place to get cheap bottled water.

Later that day we walked to the Boboli Garden across the Ponte Vecchio. The gardens were very dry and hilly and we were low on water. At the top of one area we had a great view of the Florentine countryside. After the gardens we came back and showered for dinner. Dinner was at Taverna La Bronzina, which was probably my favorite restaurant of the trip. It has nice decor, somewhat modern and rustic at the same time. We started with complementary champagne. The waiter was very nice and explained the menu to us. The wine we ordered was from Montelpuciano, which we went to later on in the trip. The host poured a small amount of wine into one glass, swirled it around, poured it into another glass and swirled, then poured it out with the rest of the bottle into a decanter to breathe. It was the most elaborate wine procedure I’ve ever seen. The food we had was: liver terrine of fois gras, gazpacho with shrimp, risotto with porcini and truffle infused butter, fillet mignon with spinach, and suckling pig with sweet fruit. Cappuccino and chocolate mousse cake was for dessert. We both agreed that the food was excellent. Theresa’s only complaint was that it wasn’t “Italian enough”.

After dinner we went back to the hotel and packed for Venezia earlier the next morning. We had to wake up at 7am for our taxi to the train station for an 8:30 train to Venezia.