SB Discovery #3 - Galileo's middle finger might seem like a good idea at the time but...

Before leaving for Pisa, we explored a bit of Florence. We went inside the cathedral (duomo) and then went outside to get in line to climb to the top of the cathedral’s dome. The line was pretty long and we noticed people at the top of the adjacent tower. The bell tower right next to the cathedral is also open to tourists to go to the top. There was no line and it was the same price. We thought it’d be nice to see the cathedral in our view of the city anyway so we began the climb up the tower. The staircases were very narrow and difficult. At one of the break points we were resting when the bell began to ring. We could see it just above us and it was enourmous. It was pretty scary to see such a huge, heavy bell swinging so much. Everyone initially jumped because it was so startling but then we just froze. Ellen and I had to sit down for a minute until it was over. I felt like the whole tower would just fall over with so much noise, ha! The view from the top of the tower was awesome. It was great to see the dome in our view of the city. After climbing back down we decided to make our way to Pisa and when we returned we walked around a bit at night and enjoyed a kebab.

The next day we really explored Florence. We walked all over the city. We went to the Science Museum where we were fortunate enough to view Galileo’s middle finger! Haha! There was some interesting stuff in the museum mostly about cartography and astronomy. We were a little disappointed, though, especially when we realized that we did not make it in time to the Ufizzi mueum containing the most famous works of Italian artists… oops! We went to see Michaelangelo’s David in the Accademia. The statue is very large, bigger than we expected. No pictures were allowed in this museum unfortunately. We learned that David actually has a broken arm. There are a few cracks that developed while the statue was outside. Ellen read that for years the statue was outdoors but then was damaged and later moved indoors. We could hardly tell that there was a crack because the statue is so big, but close-up photos in the books in the gift shop show it. We also decided that David’s right hand is disproportionately large. It’s too big. Masterpiece? We think not! Ha, just joking of course. We were actually rather astounded by it and stared for a long, long time.

In between our museum adventures we shopped. We also visited Ponte Vecchio and traversed this bridge and a few others that span the river. For lunch we found this great place recommended by our Rick Steve’s guidebook. It was a little, family-run restaurant with a cheap menu and awesome food. We got desert too… the cake we had was chocolate with strawberries which was great. The cheese Emilie ordered was only half-good. We got two kinds and one was good but no one cared for the other except for Emilie. It was hard and dry and like most French cheeses but Elizabeth decided that it tasted like Elephants’ feet. At night we found a gelateria that was recommended to us. Tivoli’s had amazing gelato and a nice atmosphere. It was inexpensive too!

The next morning we got up early and left on the cheap, long, train to Venice…