Our Italian Adventure

La Nostra Avventura Italiana

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Florence

Our final days in Florence were spent doing the last few things on our list – the Pitti Palace, hiking up to the hills above our apartment, doing some shopping, and figuring out just what we really wanted to do in Rome with our two and a half days there. The Pitti Palace was the home of the Medici, and now houses a large art museum - actually, a number of art museums. We saw the royal apartments and the Museum of Modern Art. You know a place is really old when their modern art museum displays paintings from the mid-1700s. I think the paintings and sculptures pale in comparison to the rooms that house them. Those Medici, I tell you, they didn't let a ceiling go unfrescoed, a wall ungilded, a chair uncarved, or a table un-inlaid (that last one may not be a word, but I'm on a roll here). The exterior of the palace is rather ugly and plain, so as not to incite the masses with their over-the-top, in-your-face wealth. Of course the sheer size of the building was a dead give-away.

We enjoyed a beautiful day hiking up the hill to the churches we saw framed in our arched window every night. There were wonderful views of the city after we hiked along the city wall for awhile. Shopping was, well, what can I say, it's Florence. Handmade leather jackets and gloves, but no jewelry (beautiful but expensive gold).

We loved living in Florence for that long; we wanted to stay. We met wonderful Italians who enjoy life and loved just chatting with us. Speaking of speaking, our Italian improved through our stay. We still didn't speak correctly much of the time; but by the last days we had little fear and even less pride. As we spoke to shopkeepers and waiters and people on the street we were happy when they corrected our grammar. I admit I was a little disappointed when I successfully used the future or the past imperfect tenses for my verbs and got no reaction; weren't they supposed to be impressed?? Gee, they acted like it was normal to say “we will be going to” or “I felt that”. Harrumph. Paul spoke to everyone he came in contact with in the hope they would understand and speak back – waiters, kitchen help, maids, museum guards, cab drivers, policemen. Amazing, he's never done that anywhere else in English!

On Friday morning we left our beautiful apartment overlooking the Arno, took the tiny bus to the train station, and caught the Eurostar to Rome.

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