Florence April 14-16

                                                    Day Total                              Trip to Date
Miles Walked                                    10.7                                       28.6
Feet Climbed                                     190                                        640

Song of the Day:  Lonesome for a Place I Know by Everything But The Girl

"So here we are in Italy
With a sun hat and a dictionary
The air is warm, the sky is bright

Oh but Florence you tempt me here to stay,
Amidst your hills to while my years away"

We arrived in Florence on Thursday night around 7:00.  We had missed our connecting flight in Frankfurt because our flight from San Francisco was an hour late.  After much running around (both figuratively and literally as we schlepped over two mile around the huge Frankfurt airport), we were able to argue our way onto a later flight.  As is so often the case, United Airlines was close to worthless in providing any help.  I have flown almost 2 million miles on United and their lack of service never ceases to amaze me.

The writer Rick Steves has described Florence as the Rennasiance treadmill, due to all the walking to navigate its sights and  scenes.  We can attest to this, as we put in over 28 miles in our two days there,  it is a terrific walking town, although it was so crowded that navigation is challenging at times.

One very noticeable trend is the number of Chinese tourists.   Reminds me a lot of all the Japanese tourists you used to see in the 80's and 90's (but really don't see that much anymore).  I have to think there is a very high statistical correlation between economic success of a country and tourism of its people.   One big difference though between the Japanese and Chinese tourists- with the Japanese, it is mostly older people, whereas the Chinese tend to be much younger.

Because of the crowds, we decided to forgo the big sights in Florence such as the Uffizzi Galary, statue of David, etc.  We have been to Florence several times previously, so we have already seen these.  Instead, we focused on the somewhat lesser sights including the museum of San Marco, San Lorenzo Market, Central Market, Palazzo Vecchio, Santa Croce Church (famous for the Jim Croce song Bad Bad Leeroy Brown!), the Pitti Palace (as opposed to our home in San Francisco which we sometimes term the Pity Palace!), and the Church of Santa Maria Novella.  All in all, two pretty full
days.

The Pitti Palace is huge and has several museums and gardens available. We toured the Palantine Gallery, which is mostly paintings from the 1500's and 1600's.  Linda and I have been to many of the major art museums around the world, and looking at 100's of paintings one after another can be a mind numbing experience!  We also went to the Gallery of Modern Art at the Pitti Palace, and amusingly discovered that the definition of "Modern" is paintings from the 1700's and 1800's!  These would be considered very old paintings in the USA!

I am a big fan of supply side economics, and have seen over the years how businesses react to fill or create goods to meet demand.  Nowhere is this principle more on display than street vendors around the world.  And Florence has some world class vendors.  For example, it rained on several occasions during our visit.  Within minutes of rain, street vendors would appear, selling rain slickers and umbrellas.  Last year, we noted seeing our first "selfie stick" while in Italy.   This year, there are everywhere, and we saw numerous street vendors selling selfie sticks in every shape and color.  Linda
and I have never really figured out the art of selfies.  Perhaps we need a selfie stick so we can hold the camera further away to cover up our wrinkles!

 In front of the Duomo in Florence

Linda is front of another dry Italian fountain.

A casual Mike in front of the famous Ponte Vecchio.

A bride taking wet wedding day photos on the other side of the Pointe Veccio

Hard to make out, but a bunch of selfie street vendors

We can't leave Florence without saying something about the food.  We had two outstanding dinners in Florence, two excellent lunches, and one marginal dinner. Last night, I had the steak florentine for one.  The menu included steak florentine for two and three.  The steak for one must have been a pound a half, so I can only imagine what the steak for two or three looked like.  It is great to be back in Italy consuming massive amounts of food, but not really worrying too much because we are exercising so much!