I feel the need to start this post with a thorough apology for making everyone wait to find out about the rest of our trip. I’ve been insanely busy and will do my best to keep up with this. I’m terribly sorry! Now that that’s been said, here’s how day four began…
As it was Sunday, we started our next day slowly. Always a good way to start a day on any vacation. One of the things we had determined before we left was that we would not get to see everything and we shouldn’t even try. We picked the things we wanted to see the most and then, if we missed it, well so be it. We were coming back later any way. This was definitely part of the discussion at breakfast that morning as I was still pretty sick and we had some decisions to make as we were planning on visiting Cinque Terra the next day. As we spoke we decided to opt out of Cinque Terra we didn’t want to risk it, the weather wasn’t looking promising and, as mentioned, I was still not up to snuff. Next time, Cinque Terra. So, we opted for a more leisurely time in Florence and decided not to try and cram the rest of what we wanted to see into one day.
After breakfast we headed out to visit Santa Maria Novella, a beautiful church close by that was recommended by a random online blog (I know I liked it, I just can’t remember which one) and, most importantly, by Marco and Cristiana. We wandered into the square only to discover that there was a Sunday food market going on very similar to all the food carts here in Portland. Note to self, we will be visiting when we’re finished with the church. Looking forward to that. Santa Maria Novella was beautiful as promised. Each church we visited had a different personality and theme. This particular church was heavily influenced by Egyptian artwork and architecture as you can see from the photos.
As promised we visited the food market when we were finished and left wonderfully happy and full.
As we truly are crazy for good food, we headed out to a large, open food market that Cristiana had told us about. On our way, though, we happened upon another open market that was part antique, part salvage, part second hand store in a really good way, there were Prada shoes and Dolce and Gabbana bags to be had, I’m still kicking myself about not getting something. I could have spent hours in that market. And I will someday. I can’t wait! Anyway, this particular Sunday we decided to be on the hunt for a fantastic door knocker for our front door. We didn’t have to search far and finally found just the right one. Now I knew we were supposed to be negotiating so I decided to make my first attempt. The sticker read 30 euros and so I said, “Centro?” Now if you speak Italian you will know that my negotiating skills were terrible! In my attempt to offer to pay 20 euros, venti, just like at Starbucks, I had offered to pay 100. Oh, dear. The woman gave me a strange look and Vince laughed at me and said, “We’ll take it.” Hilarious. Better luck next time.
We finally did make it to the food market only to discover that it was closed on Sundays. Oh, well, we’ll be back again.