Day 6

Day 6 - Florence, Italy What an AMAZING city! Our day started off with a city walking tour and our guide was amazing! She was so knowledgeable and entertaining. She really kept all of us engaged with the information that she shared with us. Our first stop was the Duomo (Cathedral) of Firenze, the Italian name for Florence. Florence is known as the birthplace of the Renaissance period and the home of da Vinci's statue, David. Our guide led us past the city hall where we saw amazing statues of great Italian men, Amerigo Vespuce, Dante and Galileo, just to name a few. We visited the Ponte Vecchio where we saw the bridge lined with windows and windows of fine jewelry. One of our group members attempted to go in to one of the shops later in the day where she was not so kindly denied entrance. After about 90 minutes of walking the city, our guide took us to our leather demonstration which was actually more of a sales pitch. The only demonstration that was saw was the vendor embossing gold leaf onto a piece of leather. From there we were taken to the jewelry room where we received another sales pitch. A lot of group members did buy leather articles, coats, wallets, key chains, etc. since Florence and Italy, in general, is known for its fine leather. Giuseppe then let us loose for 6 1/2 hours in the city. A majority of us headed straight for lunch while others went for gelatos or shopping. There are so many museums in Florence that it is too difficult to see them all in one day. Personally, I dragged my family to the Gucci museum which was very interesting...for me, at least! We passed several groups throughout the day and most of them took full advantage of the great shopping in Florence. This region of Italy is also known for ceramics and Florence is full of shops with beautiful ceramic pieces unique to this area of Italy. Dinner was in Florence and we had caprese salad as an appetizer, roasted chicken and potatoes for the main course and a tart for dessert. We shared the restaurant with a group of middle school students from France who sang happy birthday in French and then Italian to someone in their group, it was quite entertaining! We boarded the bus and headed back to Montecatini where we called it a night.