Moving buildings, Shoes, Kissing, Food, and Naked marble Men

We are in Florence (Firenze) and spent the day doing with those in Florence do; eat, ride the bus, eat, look at shoes, eat, and look at naked marble men. (Oh yes and kiss each other)

This is a lovely city with buildings that go back over 1,000 years. We are staying near the airport so we took the local bus downtown and back for 7 Euro for all 3 of us and then just wandered taking in the sights.

An Italian friend of mine told me several months ago that of all of Italy, Florence is a place to "stroll", don't be in a hurry no matter how little time you have, just "stroll" Firenze will come you to much faster the more you slow down. This has been good advice, I am delighted we had NO PLANS and did NO TOURS, I feel like Firenze came to us today.

Eating is something that can and is done here pretty much non-stop, and let me tell you the food is just fantastic. Every corner you turn you will find a new small cafe/pastry shop and all of them are owned by a family and their name is NOT McDonald's. Then lunch happens and today we had lunch at an outside cafe' on Piazza San Giovanni right next to the Piazza del Duomo and the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore.

Aside from the great food we looked at the shoes and boots. Oh do the Italians love their shoes and boots and they have good looking ones to love. It came to our observation that finding a shoe store in Italy is like looking for a beer pub in London or a slot machine in Las Vegas. They are everywhere and I mean everywhere. The women love to wear boots of every type, color, shape and material.

We then went for a stroll down Via dei Calzaiuoli to the Galleria degli Uffizi and looked at the marble statues and the buildings are just jaw dropping. It is Monday and the Galleria is closed so we go see the David tomorrow morning.

Again a stroll over to Ponte Vecchio and we found a fantastic little stationary shop. Much of what they sell there they make there. Sammy bought her first wax stationary sealer with her initials on it. She thought they were "cool". After some translation with the Italian shop owner we learned that the word of an Italian 14 year old girl would be "gonzo"! I purchased a really nice hand made leather bound journal and in another shop a bottle of Tuscan wine I am going to hand carry all the way home and then to Lake Tahoe, Ca. in January to drink with our wine loving friends when we visit.

By this time the strolling is getting to our American shod feet so we headed back.

In an earlier post I spoke of the book; Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. She speaks in that book how in Rome people are kissing all the time, and holding each other, and kissing and kissing and kissing and you get the idea. This activity is NOT limited to Rome. The number of people holding each other and kissing in this country is astounding, it is everywhere and frankly refreshing. We Americans would make some smart remark like, "Get a room", not the Italians they just walk by and think nothing of it.

You've got 2 be kidding me: We got back to our hotel room and Brenda is just sure the building is moving, no dear it is the ship rocking in your head, "you've got to be kidding me?" No dear I am not, drink some wind and kiss me, it will stop!