Florence

We drove from Tuscany, through Sienna, where we almost got busted by the Carabinieri for driving in the "centro storico," to Florence. It was rainy and we were tired, and the drive was uneventful until we reached Florence itself. There are no real street signs in Italian cities, the Italian motorists regard traffic laws as merely advisory, and the motorcyclists regard all traffic laws as intolerable burdens, and the only sane reaction is civil disobedience. So, it took us a while to find the car rental company and drop our car off. We were only a block or two from our hotel, so we walked there. In the rain. This passageway leads from the Ponte Vecchio to the Uffizzi.

The Ponte Vecchio.

The Arno from the north shore, just near our hotel. Mark Twain made fun of the Arno, saying you didn't need a bridge to cross it, but it apparently floods, disastrously, from time to time.

Jane and I on the Ponte Vecchio.

The Church of the Sante Croce. Inside all sorts of famous Florentines are buried or somehow memorialized--Dante, Machiavelli, Galileo, Michelangelo. A beautiful church.