DATELINE: Florence (3)

Before getting in to today's activities I want to finish up a couple of things in Rome.  First, here's a (non-sepia) photo of our Saturday afternoon restaurant, Cornucopia.

From our vantage point on the porch I could see these two gardens, both of which attest to the Italians' love of all things green.

on the 4th floor of an apartment house

rooftop garden

Now on to Florence, Day 3.  We accomplished a lot of business.  First, we figured out how to take the bus from our apartment into the center.  This is the lovely route through the grounds of the academy of art that takes us through the porto and out on to the main thoroughfare.  Lots of walkers, pram-pushers, dogs (NB:  Italian dog owners do NOT clean up after their dogs.  Hence one must be careful where one steps.).

When we leave the park there are two fruit/vegetable vendors set up right on the other side of the archway.

Beautiful produce, esp. the tomatoes.  NOTE:  The gent in this photo was lounging out in the street with his friends.  When he saw I was setting up to take a photo, he hustled behind his wares so as to make the front page of whatever he thought I was photographing for!)

The bus took us to the bus station where we checked out the schedule for Siena for next Monday.  Then we strolled into the center toward the supermarket we remember from our last trips here.  We passed by the striking Santa Maria Novella church with it's distinctive colors.

 

After another half hour of walking we found the market, bought as much as we could carry, then headed back to a restaurant we had visited some years ago and decided to try again.  It was just OK, but we were tired and hungry so agreed not to complain too much.  On our way back to our bus stop we passed the (what else?) Duomo and the Cathedral of the Duomo.  I have on my reading list "Brunelleschi's Dome" and promise I will get to it soon.

It really is a breathtaking site, no matter how often you see it.  And there were about 1000 other people milling around in the piazza oogling it, too.  So we moved on, passing this . . .

and street after street of these.  If I lived here for any time I'd get one and learn how to ride it.  It's the only way to get around.

We caught the bus home, dragged our purchases and weary bones up the hill to the apartment and collapsed for awhile.  Just a nice bowl of porcini mushroom soup for dinner, enhanced greatly by this find of Mr. C's in the grocery store.

Can you see yourself at the Safeway asking if they are all out of Salsa Fresca al Funghi Porcini?  I'm trying to figure out how to get it home.  It's utterly divine, swirled into the soup or smeared on toast or mashed into a potato.  Be still my heart!

I'm not sure what's on tomorrow's agenda.  Right now it's time to go to bed, listen to a bit of my book, and hope for a really good night's sleep.  Since I had no naps or nod-offs today, the chances are good.