The city of Florence

Day 11:

We went to Florence, mum and dad drove up with us, and we met jack and Colleen there.  The four of them went on to Venice for the day and night, and the kids and I stayed in Florence to explore.

What a beautiful city.  We parked by the boboli gardens, this being something we wanted to see.  The plan was to walk up to Il Duomo after the gardens.  The best laid plans and all.  Turns out the gardens are closed on the first and last Monday of every month, we happened to be there on the first Monday of July.  So that was a bummer.  But we continued on to see the other sights of Florence because there are many.  Too many to see in an afternoon with kids, but we tried and still saw a lot.

First up we saw the outside of Palazzo Pitti.  We decided not to go in as there was still a lot ahead of us.

Next up was the Ponte Vecchio.  This was pretty cool, we just walked down the street, the kids had no idea we were in a bridge until I showed them in the middle.  

So with a lot of these pictures Bronwyn isn't in them as she was in the backpack most of the time.  

It was really hot here today, but that just meant we needed to find gelato somewhere!  We found a square to sit down and have a little break and lunch.  This turned out to be a square in front of Palazzo Vecchio.  We had a wonderful lunch, then explored the square a little.  Lillian was in charge on the big camera, I think she is doing a great job (I will be able to tell when I download the hundreds of photos when I get home!).

Next it was t me to find Il Doumo.  Like you could miss it!  It was HUGE and beautiful and breathtaking and it honestly looked unreal.  What a sight.  We decided to stand in the line to go inside and see it.  

It wasn't time to go yet, but we needed to cool of.  There are so many museums to see here, so we went to Il Doumo museum, the ticket also got us into the baptistery.  A good tip, kids are either free or really cheap, so this was a great option for us.  

The museum was good,  nice and cool and not very crowded.  We learnt a lot about the church, and saw a lot of artifacts from it.  A great view from the top of Il Doumo.  

The baptistey was very beautiful, the kids were in awe.  Bronwyn was a bit noisy though!

We headed back to the car, a very successful day in Florence, except for the gardens of course!  The kids want to go back and see them, we will have to see...