Florence, Day 3

Our last day in Florence go off to a nice leisurely start...

Taking a break on the steps of the Duomo.

And now it's gelato time!

We wandered into the Piazza Santa Croce and watched this puppeteer, how fun!

Beautiful old buildings, they don't make them like this any more.  So sad.

The magnificent Gothic church of Santa Croce (1294) contains the tombs of many famous Florentines, including Michelangelo and Galileo.

Gianni tending the flock...

Inside the Santa Croce church...

This statue is said to be one of the inspirations for our "Statue of Liberty".

A little bit of history – the Florentine artists were such masters of perspective, which made them excellent navigators and mapmakers. Florentine cartographers based their maps on the observations and navigational records of early explorers. That is how America came to be named after the Florentine Americo Vespucci rather then Christopher Columbus. When Columbus returned from his transatlantic voyage, King Ferdinand of Spain hires Vespucci, an expert navigator check whether Columbus really had discovered a new route to the Indies. Vespucci was the first to realize that Columbus had discovered a new continent and he described his own voyage in a series of letter to Piero de’ Medici. As soon as the letter were make public, Florentine cartographers rushed out and revised maps of the world based on Vesupcci’s account. Out of loyalty to a fellow Florentine, they named the New World Amerigo, which was later corrupted to America.

A statue called "The Portal" a circle described by the leap of figures in the process of entering and going out of the portal of existence. The plunge involves five moves. We can see the eternity of the vital leap, of the bodies that come out of the earth or water and take a leap before going back into them.

A view of the Cappella de' Pazzi - the Pazzi family chapel.

Before we jumped on the train back to Naples we stopped for a late lunch, as usual the food was great!!  But the company was even better, and the waiter was nice enough to give us a big bag of wine corks to add to our collection.

We figured a couple of these for vino in the kitchen...wouldn't that be nice!!

Ciao Firenze!!