TUSCANY DAY 3

Day 3 was my favorite day, though it wasn't without its ups and downs. The good news is I wised up and dressed Dexter with a pair of footie jammies under his clothes. No more bare feet!

We had a reservation at Accademia at 10am. Since it was right around the corner from our hotel we got to take our sweet time having breakfast, and their breakfast buffet was great! Best of all, the hotel manager made such a big deal over Dexter every morning, "Oh look who's up! Buongiorno, Dexter!" They brought out a high chair for him each morning with a winnie the pooh plate and utensils, and a toy truck! He was a happy boy at breakfast time.

So like I said, our first stop was Accademia where David hangs out. Honestly, I only went because you're supposed to see David in Florence, but I had no idea how magnificent it is! The way the gallery is set up, you walk around a corner into a hall where he is all the way down at the end. It's an enormous statue, 17 feet tall and on a giant pedestal under a special glass dome built just for him. You're not allowed to take pictures, and there are some mean little Italian ladies in blue suits there to enforce it. We took some pics anyway. Chris took this one:

But I got his best side:

I love David's face. I got this picture online so you could get a good look. Doesn't he look like he's saying, "You're about to get a taste of what MY God can do!"

Nothing else at Accedemia was worth mentioning. We had a lot of time before our 3 o'clock reservation at the Uffizi Gallery. Naturally, it was time for cafe and pastries. I don't know what this is called, but I know they don't make it here in Sicily. They are the most delicious pastries in the whole entire world. We got one every time we had cafe from then on.


Dexter liked them too.
From there we visited the market and then the beautiful duomo. The duomo church was stunning from the outside. The inside, eh.







The tower offered a spectacular view, if you could climb 414 steps. Dexter and I were obviously out, but Krystal and Chris went up. It was actually a nice break for Dex, who finally got out of his stroller for a bit.


Here they are at the top!
Check out the view!


Uh oh! Look who's down below in the square! Can you see Dex and me playing on the bench? Look for the orange stroller next to us.



They were up there for quite awhile, so we decided to check out the Disney store around the corner and then scope out some lunch possibilities. We found a great looking pizza/focaccia place, so we headed straight there after K&C came down. Dexter at a lot of pizza!



Next we headed to another church that we didn't plan to go to, but it was highly recommended by Krystal's friend the night before. So we checked it out. Dexter and I chased pigeons in front of the church.


Santa Croce was the church Michaelangelo grew up in. The neat thing about it is there are a bunch of very famous people buried there, like Galileo.

Michaelangelo
And Dante

After that K&C dropped walked us over to the Uffizi Gallery. They didn't want to go so it was just me and Dex. The gallery is in this famous Florentine square:
Meanwhile they went shopping:
I should have gone shopping.

Not that Uffizi doesn't have a lot of impressive art. But there are a lot of stairs and I had a stroller. There are no baby changing places. My contacts were cloudy. There were a million tour groups. It just wasn't fun. I did see some famous painings by Botticelli, Titian, Raphael and Da Vinci. Under different circumstances it would have been awesome. But circumstances being what they were, I couldn't wait to get out of there.

K&C met us back in the square and we decided to check out the other side of town, across the Ponte Vecchio bridge. Here we are in front of Ponte Vecchio.

The bridge is lined with jewelry shops. Chris took pictures while Krystal and I gazed in the shop windows making wishes...
Ponte Vecchio from the other side of the river.

Krystal led us on Ricky's walking tour of this side of the river. On the way we stopped for cafe, and of course, one of the best pastries in the whole world. Dexter shared with me.
The tour took us past this statue that was placed where they put out the trash. See her holding her nose?
After dinner we headed back to the hotel. It was a beautiful walk, and overall, a great day.