A morning of culture!

Yay, I do believe I'm up-to-date and today really is Tuesday 5 July. If the date shows differently it's cos it's showing Aussi time but we're actually 8 hours behind you and no way am I going to attempt those Italian instructions and risk entering another 59 blogs so the date will have to stay the way it is and just remember I'm actually writing these blogs in the evenings! Thank you CJ for rescuing me from all those scary blog repeats. I started deleting but it was taking ages and internet access is actually quite an expensive exercise over here - well worth it to keep in contact with everyone though.

This morning (Tuesday) we had an early start as we walked down to queue for the Uffizi Art Gallery. We were there joining the queue at 8am (it opened at 8.15am) but still had a 2 hour wait. My legs were so sore, they hate standing still and the queue moved sooooo slowly. However it was well worth the long wait. We hired a double audio guide to share and spent 3 hours going through 46 rooms - absolutely amazing. What can I say, the lighting, the paintings - thousands of them from the Medieval period, Renaissance, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, da Vinci, Rembrandt to name but a few. It was mind boggling. No photos were allowed inside of course but it was a truly fantastic gallery. We had lunch in the cafeteria there - a really nice cappuccino which cost a mere 4.50E which is equivalent to nearly $7 Aust!! Cappuccino here is different from Oz - it isn't the creamy froth I imagined. It is a white froth. A good one is about 3/4 froth but the coffee itself is strong and really delicious. I had a latte the other day (always have to say 'cafe latte' or they give you plain milk!) and it was very disappointing - not much flavour at all so I must remember to always have cappuccinos in the morning in future!!

I did forget to mention that while in France in Eze we visited the Fragonnaud perfume factory. Dave and I had our own personal English speaking guide who showed us how everything was made. It was fascinating and of course we were tempted into spending a fortune - lucky daughters! It was a beautiful place.

Anyway back to the Uffizi - I digressed a bit there! There were corridors of Roman statues and stunning painted ceilings. It was an exhausting morning but very well worth it. It was slightly cloudy with a very few drops of rain when we emerged from the gallery but still very very warm, not requiring any more than shorts and t-shirts. However, our feet were very tired after 5 hours on them so we had an hour's siesta (like the locals do) before hitting the streets again. Walking over the Ponte Vecchio (the bridge between the left and right banks of Florence with shops on each side) is an experience in itself. There are a large number of modern and antique jewellery shops and little boutiques and there's always musicians playing in the evenings. It's a popular place to browse and just listen to the music or stare over at the beautiful views across the water.

Just before coming to our Internet Train we returned to our favourite gelataria for a quick fix. Oh boy, those icecreams are sooooo good. We had quite an interesting experience there tonight. Dave is becoming quite proficient at his Italian phrases. I'm picking it up a bit more slowly. There was a jovial Italian man sitting there and he tried to guess Dave's nationality - I think he tried everything except Australian. Anyway, once he knew that he tried to explain that he had cousins in Melbourne (surprise, surprise, half of Italy seems to be in Melbourne and the other half of Melbourne is in Italy!!) - anyway Mario could not speak a word of English but he was quite sure we understood him! He went on and on. He decided we could communicate in a few words of French which were only the words for dog and cat. It was so funny cos I was sitting in the middle and picking up a few words which sounded like something and repeating them to Dave so Mario thought I was translating. We did work out a few things such as the Pope being Benedictine 16 - I think he thought we were off to Rome. He told us the names of his relatives in Melbourne - he probably thinks we are all best buddies! Anyway, we said our farewells. It was a good thing he couldn't understand us cos the girl who served us obviously knew Mario well but couldn't discourage him. She could speak perfect English and she was grinning from ear to ear at us inbetween serving customers and apologising for him! We didn't mind. It made for yet another interesting Italian experience!