Sunset On The Hills Above Florence

Free Day!

Sunday we had a free day!  We did set an alarm to get up (so we didn't sleep past 9 again) but leisurely got ready and had breakfast.  We didn't leave the hotel until after 10 to walk to Ponte Vecchio, where we planned to meet Mom & Dad to walk the bridge.
We walked down to the bridge stopping along the way to get a snack and to look at pins for the girls.

The street up where our hotel was had almost no activity and very few places were open until we got down to the historic center of Florence.  When we arrived at the bridge, we snacked while we waited for M&D to arrive.  In just a minute they were there and we were off.

The bridge was crowded and only half of the stores were open because it was Sunday.  We strolled along looking into the windows at the jewelry and dodging street venders selling small posters and squishy pigs that you throw at the ground.

We hit a t-shirt shop on the other side of the bridge and decided we were hungry.  We walked further up the street to the Palazza Pitti but when the very hot sun on the outdoor umbrellas drove us back toward the bridge we retreated to the shade of the stone buildings.

I ran back into the t-shirt shop and got advice from the guy there who spoke perfect English and said he had lived in London and New York.  He recommended a restaurant we would have never found because when we had crossed that street the first time it looked completely deserted.  Quattro Leiones was fabulous and we sat inside where the A/C blew on us.  It was the PERFECT Florentine restaurant.  No English menus and it was incredibly busy by the time we left.  Score 10!

From lunch we moved back across the Ponte Vecchio to the market where we got Helen a jacket and said goodbye to Mom & Dad as they entered the taxi and drove away waving and blowing kisses.
We walked back across the Ponte Vecchio and up to the Boboli Gardens.  We had read in Lonely Planet that the admission was free.  Not true and with a 10E entrance fee, not even close.  We walked away from the Palaccio Pitti and down and around the corner to the other gate on the gardens and asked about free admittance to the garden.  They took it easy on us and only made us pay for Mike & I (EU kids under 18 are free and he just gave the girls those tickets)  Yay!

We strolled the garden and checked out the fountains.  We left the kids on a grassy plain that overlooked Florence and walked through some of the rest of the garden.  It was a little under-kept but there was plenty of shade and the walk along the shaded paths were quiet and sweet.

We had a small snack and finished a bottle of wine overlooking the city before we headed down and out to make our way to Piazza Michaelangelo where we would picnic and watch the sun set.
Picked up some food in the grocery on the way to the park and climbed the enormous hill to get to Piazza Michaelangelo.  Where we find that just because a park is marked green on the map does not meet there is a stick of grass anywhere.  The piazza was under construction with huge equipment parked in and a tall metal fence surrounding.  We found a bench (no shade to be found b/c there were no trees) and broke out our picnic. I was so hungry!!  

The sun set over Florence and it was stunning.  The sky turned all sorts of colors of orange and gold.  Mike took a zillion photos of the sun gleaming off the Arno River as the sun set over the hills behind Firenze.  Perfetto!