A Town Like Florence

Peggy here. Florence is breathtaking, for more reasons than one. We visited the Uffizi today where the largest collection of Renaissance painting is housed. We started in the Middle Ages room, with all of the altar pieces and madonnas and the stacked cherubs. There was a gentleman in one painting who seemed to say "Oh no, not this again". The painting with all of its gold leafing and halos was what they were painting when the Renaissance painters were born and then the Renaissance painters grew up and went to town. It was remarkable to see them struggle on canvas. Some paintings are successful and some are not and that is just the way art goes. They took the human body out from under the heavy cloaks, quit painting everybody with a hunched back, and painted semi nudes and painted depth rather than stacking their characters.

We walked across the Arno River to tourist shopping and that was a nightmare.

We have nothing planned for tomorrow, which is a relief. I believe that we are arranging for transportation back to Rome...train or rent a car? I am voting for train but I see the light in Kathy's and Rosemary's eyes and can see myself in the back of an alfa romeo.

The hotel here is utterly charming. We look out onto an atrium where we have all set up shop and snacks and sit and chat under the Florentine sun and full moon. There are only 9 rooms here and the owners seem to run happily at our requests and the requests of others. We have breakfast here, all set up very nicely by the owner, and are treated like royalty.

Florence sparks my imagination and I will come back to this beautiful city. I am returning home to study Renaissance art and what happened after that.