Italy 2014 Day 06 – Saturday 25 October

Last view of Florence

Wake-up was slightly later – 06:30 – with our bags to be out in the hallway for 07:30, the same time as breakfast.  

Chapel of the Blessed
Sacrament, Church of
Santa Maria Novella

At 08:30, we walked from the hotel to the nearby church of Santa Maria Novella, where Fr. Chris said Mass in the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament. 

The Uffizi Gallery

Isabella met up with us again afterward, and we walked to the Uffizi Gallery just off the Piazza della Signoria [LINK].  What was built in the 16^th century to be offices (Uffizi) for Florentine city officials very early became a show-house for artistic treasures accumulated by the Medici family who dominated those offices and which were ultimately bequeathed to the city by the last Medici heiress in the 17^th century.  Our group of 46 then split up into two smaller groups to tour the repository of some of the most famous paintings and statues in the world [Virtual tour:  LINK].  We followed Isabella.  Once again, a couple of hours was not nearly enough time.  It was downright frustrating, in fact, the one constant albeit inevitable aspect of this journey.  Anne and I took far too many pictures to incorporate even a fraction here; I will post a number at the bottom of this entry.

Far too soon, our two groups reunited for a walk back to the Piazza Santa Croce, where we could have had another chance to tour the church and see the tombs of so many outstanding Italians … but we opted instead to eat lunch and rest.  Lunch was pizza there on the square near the statue of Dante.  The food was good, although the service was lousy.  I did make a quick sweep around the plaza’s gift shops mainly seeking a necktie – I had seen so many in passing but could not break away from the group to check them out – and found one with Florentine lilies (don't call them fleurs-de-lys!) as well as various other items including a Pinocchio Christmas ornament (Carlo Collodi was Florentine).  I also just sat there and enjoyed a beer and good company.  Then it was another walk back the way we had originally come yesterday, back to the bus park.

Before we left Florence completely, we made a quick stop at an overlook that gave us a good view of the city as a whole [see top], then we were on the road again, with only a brief “coffee in, coffee out” (one of Debra’s many memorable phrases) breaking the four-hour drive down to Rome, during which we also viewed the remainder of the movie about Sts. Clare and Francis. 

We arrived at the Hotel Cicerone [LINK], on the Vatican side of the River Tiber, about 19:15, just in time for our scheduled 19:30 dinner.  After dinner, I came back up to our room, but was too beat to get any productive work done.  [Fri 31 Oct 10:46]

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Pictures from the Uffizi Gallery

Lower left, our Florence guide Isabella

The Ponto Vecchio [LINK] from the Uffizi Gallery