Exploring Florence

I had my first cappuchino in Italy this morning. I normally don't drink coffee at all but I had to break down and try one. Here, it's considered a breakfast drink only so they know you're a loser North American tourist if you order one in the afternoon. It just tasted like coffee to me.

We spent the morning walking to Piazzale Michelangelo, where you have a great view of Florence. The second David copy is there too. After many pictures, we stopped a bit down the road at San Miniato al Monte church. It has the nicest cemetery I've ever seen. Some families have these mini replica basilicas for mausoleums. Kevin captured me pointing and saying, "This is the way to die". (I'm not giving the thumbs up to the dead Masieris.) The church also boasts the worst bathroom ever. It was an outhouse, but with no seat. Just squatting over a hole in the ground. Needless to say, I held it.

There's a nice path that winds along the road so we kept walking until we ended up by Ponte Vecchio for lunch. For the afternoon we toured the Pitti Palace, backed by the Boboli Gardens. Parts of the palace were closed so we spent most of our time walking the gardens. Fountains, sculptures, arbors - you name it. There was a small Porcelain Museum in the gardens and a Costume Gallery inside the palace. We ended up walking the length of the garden 4 times due to bad map reading while looking for the Costume Gallery. All maps in Florence suck. That's a rule here.

We failed at a geocache on our way to dinner and called it a night after some excellent panacotta for me and tiramisu for Kevin.