I’ve got two weeks left in Italy, which doesn’t seem like very much time. But I’ll be ready to get back to the US. I specifically miss air conditioning, Texmex, and peanut butter. I’ve seen all the major museums, so I’ll spend the rest of the time finding the smaller ones. This weekend, I took a bike ride around Oltrearno, the part of Florence on the other side of the river. I saw the Bardini gardens, which is a relatively small shade garden, very pretty, with great Florence views. The Coffeehouse at the Bardini actually sold coffee, unlike the Coffeehouse at the larger Boboli gardens. Boboli Coffeehouse is just a building that USED to sell coffee…very deceptive. Then I walked over to the Piazzale Michelangelo, which is the famous place to view Florence. Unfortunately, it was mostly a parking lot, not the pretty piazza on a hill I was expecting.
I also stopped by the Galileo science museum, which exhibits old scientific instruments. Also, terrifying wax models of pregnancy and pregnancy complications. Galileo’s actual finger is displayed as well.
Sunday, I took a bus to see San Gimignano and the Monteriggioni medieval festival. San Gimignano was very small pretty, but had way too many tourists. Monteriggioni is an extreeeemely tiny town. It seems like more of a medieval fort, with a big stone wall. The entire town was participating in the festival, everyone dressed, and playing the part. Dante walked around reciting, etc. The finally was a pantomime play of St. George and the Dragon entirely performed on stilts. Then fireworks shot from the town walls.