Our morning was spent packing, riding the train to Florence, and finding our hotel, but we still had the afternoon to wander around, get our Firenze pass, and visit a church and a museum.

The Duomo is a Gothic cathedral with a huge dome that can be seen all around town and makes a good landmark in a city of narrow winding streets. We found the Mercato Market where we had lunch and then walked through the Duomo to get a sense of its grandeur.

From there we went to Accademia to see Michelangelo’s David. Our Firenze cards let us skip the long lines and walk right in. I expected the crowd to be huge but it wasn’t bad at all, and we were able to see this amazing statue up close and from all sides. This is truly a marvelous work that you cannot possibly appreciate from photos alone. You have to see it. I remember that the statue was attacked in the early 90s by a deranged  man with a hammer and a toe was broken (and repaired). Nowadays you can’t get that close because there are plexiglass panels all around it.

To get to David you pass by a series of incomplete statues know as the Prisoners. They are called this because Michelangelo believed he was freeing his sculptures from the stone in which God had imprisoned them. Because they are unfinished, they do appear to be emerging from huge blocks of marble.

Also in the Accademia there is a little bonus room, The Museum of Musical Instruments. This room holds mostly string instruments, including several Stradivarius violins. I got the feeling I sometimes have when I see animals in a zoo. Those violins should be played, not just looked at. Paul was enthralled by a double bass and asked if I would buy it for him, but I think we will remain a one-bass family for now.

Late last night, from our hotel room, we heard laughing, shouting, and chanting in the street below us. Apparently there was a football game (not American football, but the less barbaric game the rest of the world plays) between Rome and Florence. The Rome team won, but apparently some folks in Florence were quite happy about that. If I were younger, I might have gone out on the street to join them.