Today we visited the Palazzo Pizzi, which is one of the Medici palaces. It’s been turned into a series of museums/galleries – a modern art gallery, a silver gallery, a costume gallery (whee!), plus the gardens have been kept, and are huge. There’s a gorgeous parterre garden overlooking the Florentine hills, and some great formal gardens overlooked by the palazzo. There’s some modern art in the gardens as well as the original sculptures, which makes for an interesting mix!
On the way, we stopped on the Ponte Vicchio, the famous footbridge. Of course I followed Jo’s advice and was kissed while on the bridge, but we didn’t follow the example of others who had put locks on the railings to symbolise their love. Looooots of people there – even though it was a footbridge there were still millions of bicycles to add to the human congestion!
The costume museum had some great items – a red velvet dress from the early 19th century, and scarily enough, some burial clothes from a pair of Medicis from the 16th century! Actually the clothes they were buried in!! Their graves were exhumed a few times for some reason or another, and at one stage their clothes were taken to be restored for historical research! They were in amazingly good condition, all things considered, but quite disturbing!!!!
Then we finally made it to the supermarket for supplies. We had lunch back at the hotel, cheese and salad and meats with bread. Then T arrived, and we showed her the fabulousness that is the Festival del Gelato. (I tried the rosa this time – rose and cream flavoured – oh yum)
Two Weeks Away 