Mom's Birthday in Florence

Well today didn't quite go as planned. We decided (We meaning me... apparently I'm in charge of deciding!) to go to the Accademia to see the statue of David, and then the Boboli Gardens for Mom's birthday.

We walked to the Museo Archaelogico to get the Accademia tickets. This is a little tricky way to not stand in line at the Accademia. This is where we discovered that the Accademia is closed on Mondays. Oops! We tried to get tickets for Wednesday (we are too busy on Tuesday), but they didn't have any left! We managed to get tickets for Thursday. Phew!

Travel tip: Book your Accademia tickets ahead of time!

The Boboli Gardens were in the other direction, so I decided to stop for lunch first at the Irish Pub which is about half way between the two (and right around the corner from our apartment!). This also helped check off another city on my "Irish Pub Experiment"! Irish Pub in Florence...✓

We celebrated Mom's birthday with a drink.  Jessica decided to try the Spritz again that we had in Venice... but this time it was quite a bit bigger... and quite a bit stronger!

After lunch, we headed towards the Boboli Gardens. To get there we crossed the Ponte Vecchio bridge. This is a famous bridge because it is a medieval bridge that has shops spanning along both sides of the bridge.

After we crossed the bridge we quickly came to the Pitti Palace... where I think the Boboli Gardens will be. Guess what? They are also closed on Monday! My plan is foiled for the second time today!

We decided to head back across the bridge and over to the Duomo... keeping in mind it just might be closed! Guess what? It wasn't! YAY! We can see something!

The Cathedral is normally just called the Duomo of Florence, but also has the rather lengthy name of "Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore". Yep, that is a mouthful... you can see why people just call it the Duomo!

The cathedral is enormous. I think perhaps the most enormous one that I've seen. Here is a photo to try to show you scope. That is the 4 of us beside the cathedral!

Construction began in 1296 and was completed in 1436. I can't even imagine how they built something of this scale in that time! The dome is also a beautiful feature of this church. It is huge, and has many beautiful frescoes inside. We are going to go up later in the week... but promised Mom she wouldn't have to walk up 463 steps on her birthday!

As we were in the cathedral a thunderstorm started (I don't think there is any biblical reason!) so when we walked home it was raining a bit. There are definitely entrepreneurs in this city, as many people were suddenly selling umbrellas! We didn't need one though... we're quite used to rain 😀

The rain didn't stop Jessie and I from peeking in some pretty doors to see what was inside... if you are curious it was a giant statue!

When we got home we decided to try out one of our purchases from today... 😀

Mom decided she wanted to stay in for dinner, so Steve prepared a little feast for all of us in our beautiful kitchen! Have I mentioned how great our apartment is? It is definitely a far cry from the one we stayed in last time we were in Florence!

After dinner we headed out for some birthday gelato. We went to "Perche No!" (translates to "Why not?") as our hostess told us it was her favourite in town. I can see why. The ice cream is homemade every day and was out of this world. Jessie had a rose flavoured one which she really liked, my salted caramel was to die for, and Steve had chocolate and fresh mint which was amazing! (I can't remember what Mom and Gary had... I was pretty absorbed in my own ice cream!)

After we finished with our ice cream we headed back to the Palazzo Vecchio to admire the statues again. They had it chained off so we couldn't go in! I'm hoping this is just another Monday thing. I'm not sure why we couldn't go in as there was a security guard, just like there was the night before.

Instead we settled on the steps and listened to an amazing guitarist play for us (well not JUST for us... but you know what I mean!). Jessie said she could have sat and listened all night... I could have too if it weren't for the mosquitoes...