Craig's blog

Today we went to Florence. It was a long day – 9 ½ miles of walking, but it was a good day.  When we got to Florence we took a guided tour of the Duomo cathedral and walked down to the river, over the famous Ponte Vecchio (bridge) and then eventually back to the Accademia to see the statue of David.  By the time we were done with all that, it was 1:00 and we were hungry.

We stopped at a restaurant and had our standard fair of salad and sandwiches.  Then we walked to the Uffizi gallery, which is huge, and moved through it very quickly.  Then we headed back up to the Duomo so we could climb the 463 steps to the top.  We waited in line for more than an hour and a half.  Eventually Patty gave up and went to the Cantabile concert while Kelli, Katie and I continued to wait. The climb and the view from the top were both excellent and we were very glad we did it - I think it will be a highlight for the girls – but we were sorry to miss the concert.  It was in a beautiful, outdoor venue and we arrived just as it ended.

After the concert, one of the priests asked the choir to sing Amazing Grace for a family that was grieving for their mother that had just died.  It was a very poignant moment that touched everyone.

After the concert, we walked about a mile and a half to our dinner spot, which was excellent. Kelli, Katie and I sat with Elena and got to hear about growing up in Russia, which was interesting.  After dinner, we stepped outside and the kids did an impromptu concert on the steps of the church that was outside the restaurant.  Then they were asked to sing happy birthday to a passerby, which was probably the best version of that song that I’ve heard. 

Finally we walked along the river to our bus before the drive home.

I’ve failed to mention that our hotel in Montecatini has been pretty unimpressive.  Besides wifi that doesn’t move any data, the hotel lost power (and water with that) for one day (which may not have been their fault), served crummy food, didn’t have enough rooms for all of our group, had some rooms that were just about unacceptable for various reasons, etc.  On the plus side, one of their employees went to the store on his way to work one day to buy me a roll of duct tape to fix my torn suitcase.  We tried to explain what kind of tape we wanted (I assumed they would call it duct tape too), but when it arrived (it was what we wanted) we found it is called “American tape” in Italy.  I found that pretty amusing.