Sweetie and Doc Take a Trip: Florence

Dear Charlie and Polly,
Well, I am finally caught up with this blog, so you will get two posts today! Don't forget to scroll down and read the post about Cinque Terre!
Friday was our last day in Florence, and we saw so many amazing things. Doc took this picture of our view from the villa before we got the taxi into town. It looks dark and stormy, but the day turned out to be very nice. Those are olive trees up close and grapevines in the distance.

The first thing we wanted to do was see Michelangelo's famous sculpture of David from the Bible story David and Goliath. It was amazing to see; he is as tall as the top of your house and carved out of one solid piece of Carrara marble. We couldn't take pictures in the museum, but here is a picture from Wikipedia. If you look very closely at his left foot, you can see where it has been damaged. In 1991, a frustrated artist smashed his foot, so now you can't get very close to him anymore.

The next thing we wanted to do was walk across the Ponte Vecchio. Remember, that is the old bridge we looked at from lunch the other day. Before I tell you about our trip across the bridge, I will explain why it is important. About five hundred years ago, there were two very rich and powerful families in Florence; the Medici family and the Pitti family. The Medici family had a huge palace on one side of the Arno River, so the Pitti family decided to build an even bigger, fancier palace on the other side of the Arno River. But the Pitti family ran out of money before they could finish their palace, so Mrs. Medici decided she wanted to buy it and finish it for her family - she had ELEVEN children!

The Medici family went on to live in the Pitti Palace (they continued to call it that even after they bought it) for almost two hundred years. They had a problem though. For the Medici men to get to work in Florence, they had to cross the Arno River to get to their offices (the building which is now the Ufizzi Art Gallery). The Ponte Vecchio bridge had shops all along both sides of the road, but the shops were meat and fish sellers. The butchers and fish mongers liked having their shops over the river so they could throw all their trash off the bridge into the water, but it was VERY STINKY! The rich Medici men did not like having to walk past this stinkiness every day, so they forced the butchers and fish mongers to open their shops somewhere else, and they opened stores selling gold and jewels there instead. Still today, jewelry stores line both sides of the bridge, and some people even call it the Golden Bridge instead of Ponte Vecchio.

There was store window,after store window that looked just like this!

Do you think Sweetie was able to talk Doc into getting her something there?

This is the view from the middle of the bridge looking down the river.

After we crossed the bridge, we toured the Pitti palace. This is part of the front of it - it's so enormous I couldn't get it all in my camera frame!

We couldn't take pictures inside the palace, but it was beautiful. Every room was like an art gallery. You can see some pictures of it here. The Medici family loved art and science, so they supported many artists and scientists so they would have time to do their very best work. Galileo even tutored the Medici children!

These are the front doors to the Pitti Palace. Why do you suppose they needed doors so big? Maybe so friendly giants could come visit!

Next we walked back across the bridge to the Palazzo Vecchio (old palace) where the Medici family lived before moving across the river to the Pitti Palace. Ask Mommy to show you the fleur di lis on the side of the building. That is the symbol of the country of France, but it is also the symbol of the city of Florence. One of the Medici daughters married the king of France, so you see a lot of French influence all over the city.

The inside of Palazzo Vecchio is being renovated, but here is a picture of one room.

Looking up in the same room.

This is called the Loggia next to the Palazzo Vecchio. It is filled with beautiful marble statues, but I imagine they also used it as an outdoor gathering place.