Bill and Christine had brought their European GPS that they had purchased before their 2 month stay in France, Spain, and Scotland in June and July. Should you ever travel to Europe, do not attempt to do so without a GPS. A real time and hassle saver. At the risk of sounding like a worthless tag along, I will admit that without Bill doing all the driving (for the whole trip) and Christine doing all the navigating with the GPS, Lynn and I would probably still be in Italy.
Our overnight in Florence was very pleasant. We were booked at a little hotel, The Hotel Jane, on a small side street in a building that was deceptively modern and comfortable inside. Our parking was right out the front door on the very narrow street and couldn't have been more convenient. We checked in and took a short rest from about 2 till 3 and felt quite refreshed.
Christine had made online reservations for us to visit the Accademia at 4:00 pm. Since driving is so limited in Florence, we took a bus to our destination. The Accademia is where the great Michelangelo's David stands for viewing. It so humbling to be in the same room with such art.You would think that an art moron would be immune to the power of such things, but that is just not the case. I had been within touching distant of a few Rembrandt's and so I was not surprised to be almost in tears at the beauty of such art. Hard to explain, but I know that we are all overwhelmed by such occasions. We spent about 2 hours at the museum, (it house many great sculptures and paintings as well as David, and then left for a short walk to a near by restaurant. We picked one at random and had a satisfying, but not great dinner. I thought we did pretty well for just picking a place at random. After dinner we had our first gelati. We later discovered that even very bad gelati is absolutely wonderful. We then took the bus back to The Hotel Jane and had a badly needed nights sleep.
We were all excited to get going the next day and after a very good breakfast provided at the hotel, we were set to do some brief sightseeing in Florence, then off to Siena and on our way to the Hotel Prategiano in Montieri. We were not scheduled to arrive at the Hotel Prategiano until around 2:00 pm, so our schedule was pretty relaxed.
Before we left Florence, Bill and Christine knew of a special view of the city that they wanted us to see from the parking lot of the Palazzo Pitti. They had been there on a previous bus tour of Florence and knew that it was worth a stop. The pictures here were taken from that parking lot and, as you
can see the view is pretty special. 
I have other pictures taken in Florence and may decide to publish them in a future post.
More to follow.
