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Today we went to the Pitti Palace, former home of bigwigs (Medici, Napoleon) now a large museum. No pictures allowed. The museum contains paintings, sculptures, jewelry and has a garden.  After lunch (pizza again!) we went to the Galileo Museum, which allows pictures but I didn’t take any with my phone. The Galileo Museum has old science equipment, including a couple of Galileo’s telescopes and his finger. I still need to lookup the how and why of the finger. It was a cool museum. Dinner was at a Chinese restaurant, which had European sized portions, but tasted really good.

Us in front of the Pitti Palace

We had no plans for today other than get here, find our hotel, and walk around. I like Florence better than Rome already. Much less  chaotic, much smaller, cleaner.

The Duomo

Fake David, original location

Ponte Vecchio,  built in 1345, has buildings hanging off it. Not destroyed in WWII.

Overlooking Florence

We took the high speed train from Rome to Florence. The slow train takes almost 4 hours while the high speed train takes about an hour and a half. I think the cost was about 40% more but there would have been bigger savings if we bought our tickets in advance. We didn’t buy in advance for the trip because we wanted some flexibility in our schedule. The train hit 245 km/h (a little over 150 mph).

Leaving in an hour or two by train from Rome to Florence.

Last night was the worst dinner in Rome. We went to a place in the Rick Steves book. I ordered pizza, Denise ordered gnocchi. We were the only two people in the place when we placed the order. It took about 20 minutes to get my pizza (should have taken 5). I’m halfway done with my burnt flavorless pizza when they finally bring Denise’s gnocchi, which we had to remind them about. It was luke warm at best, and tasted really bad. Don’t go to Bar Firenze at Via Firenze 33.

Tonight’s dinner was at an Irish pub. I had Italian sausage (more like ground sausage flattened into a long narrow patty) and Denise had a salad. It was good.

And every night we’ve had gelato from La Martorana, about a block from our hotel. Tasty and well priced. Via Torino 129.