Florence

Observations:
The philosophy of the motorcycle drivers seems to be that they have a different set of traffic laws.  They weave in and out, disregarding lanes, lines, and speed.  At red lights, they all drive up to the front of the line and jockey for position amongst themselves:

So much art, so little time.  Florence, or Firenze, is magnificent.  You could spend a week here and only begin to tap into all the art.  We saw Michelangelo’s David, the original.  As we walked along towards the museum to see this masterpiece, we passed plenty of beautiful sculptures, not unlike the others we’d seen in Milan, Turin, and Genoa.  I wondered aloud what makes the David stand apart from the rest.  Chris explained that it is said to be perfect.  We saw David and now I understand completely.  It is perfect.  Every feature from every angle, every muscle, vein, tendon, every lifelike inch of this huge marble sculpture is exact.  The other sculptures haven’t looked the same since!  You aren’t allowed to take pictures, but we didn’t know that upon entering, and neither did lots of other people.  So, even though we weren’t supposed to, we are kind of thrilled to have one.

Some other sculptures:

David:

We also went to the Uffizi Gallery where we saw more Michelangelo, more da Vinci, Botticelli (including The Birth of Venus), statues of many of the Roman emperors, and so, so much more.  No photos allowed.

One of the duomos in Florence:

Still going:

Bridges over the Arno River:

At dinner:

We have been taking pictures of most of the food we eat.  This night we had an especially nice dinner and decided to take pics of everything.

Funny picture of the day:

Dessert came and went before we even thought to take a picture!