Below are my photos from Florence, we must have walked for about 7 hours a day trying to visit all the main places but we ran out of time! The main places we visited were the Ponte Vecchio. The detailing on the some of the bridge is incredible and the view from the top is absolutely breathtaking. The Duomo was so beautiful inside and the fact that there were remains of a fourth century cathedral is quite unbelievable; it’s hard t imagine that something so old has survive this long. The Palazzo Pitti was very impressive, especially all of the frescoes in the royal rooms. A few of the other places we visited were, Galleria dell’ Academia, Boboli Garden and Pitti Palace to name a few!
View from our hotel roof! The Grand Minevra Hotel
Swimming Pool on the hotel roof…very nice
View from our hotel bedroom, we spent so much time people watching
on the balcony& listening to the music coming from the square below.
The horse and carriage rides were quite popular
Ponte Vecchio, the oldest bridge in Florence dating back to 1345!
As you would expect, the food was out of this world! We ate out every night and had
such great food. And the wine, let’s just say we kept the Chianti region in business!
The buildings were so beautiful, most of them had these pretty shutters and were
painted with soft muted tones that could be straight from the Farrow and Ball collection (below). 
The markets we so good and surprisingly affordable. I bought a beautiful weaved leather belt, and
leather wallet for 10 euro and a gorgeous cotton/linen scarf for 4 euro! I don’t know
why I was expecting it to be expensive but it was a pleasant surprise to find that it was all really
well priced.
Mmm, what can I buy next…?
Above is a picture of the most incredible Art shop on Borgo San Jacopo that you have to visit! It was run by a very sweet Italian lady and had the the most amazing collections of paintings. It was a treasure trove with overflowing shelves, folders bursting at the seams with paintings, things hanging from the ceilings, boxes stacked with prints all over the floor; we must have been there for well over an hour. We walked away with some gold leaf Italian letters that had been made into a montage, we picked the first letter of all of my family and will frame then when we get home, some original fashion sketches from the 50’s and some pencil drawings of medieval musical instruments-I know it sounds weird but they are beautiful!
Boboli Garden and Pitti Palace. The gardens were beautiful. It’s hard to believe that something so grand could have been commissioned so long ago. The rooms inside the Palace we incredible and filled with stunning frescoes; such talent and the stories that the artists were telling made them very emotional. Stu and I were just walking around the place in awe of everything around us. It really did blow us away.
Below are a few pictures from the Bargello Museum, The National Museum has its setting in one of the oldest buildings in Florence that dates back to 1255! It houses the famous Donatello’s bronze sculpture of Judith and Holofernes and Bacchus by Michelangelo
