Wednesday and off to cooking class

I don't know what has happened to my brain this trip. Everything was going great. We had no problem getting to Florence or getting a taxi to the apartment. We had dinner in our neighborhood or as Donna has nicknamed it "our hood".  It was a little cafe on the Piazza Santo Spirito. We sat outside and just soaked up the atmosphere. The food was delish and I enjoyed a glass of wine as the sun set.  We also learned that many of the most beautiful churches on the inside have very plain exteriors and those with the most ornate exteriors have more auster interiors in contrast.  

The next morning we got up and put on our agenda getting cash and figuring out the bus station for our class the following day.  We headed out of the hood over the Ponte Vecchio bridge, which has more fine jewelry, gold, silver, fine gems and watches than you can imagine.  Decided we didnt want to spend all our euros on one item so we kept walking.  It was very cool to see though.  We found a Bancomat (atm) and I got cash,  Donna needed a Bank that would handle changing currency.  That was a little more difficult to find, so she decided to use one of the currency exchange offices.  Turned out they charge a lot more fees than the bank and she ended up with a bit less cash than she had planned.  We walk 2 more blocks and find a Deutsche Bank that could handle the transaction, oh well lesson learned. Next we came upon the Piazza Della Signoria.  The statues were everywhere.  They are the most incredible works of art.  It just boogles the mind that they could take a block of marble and with a series if chisels create these perfectly formed, life like sculptures.  I moved from one to the next with that look of pure awe.  My mother would have looked at me and said, laynie,  close your mouth you look like an idiot.  We were getting ready to head for the Bus Station to check out the schedule and location when the skies opened up and the rain came pouring down.  Taking shelter in a building we discovered we were at the Palazzo Vecchio, the palace of Cosimo Medici (the first).  I went and bought us tickets for the "English" tour and we only had to wait 20 minutes for the tour to start - understand that a 20 minute wait for these museums and tours is nothing.   It was so worth the time and money, we saw the most incredible paintings on the walls and ceilings, plus the guide was very knowledgable about the Medics and the palace, so we learned a lot as well.

The ceiling.  Each of those squares is about 10 ft long.

This painting took about a year to do and there wer 6 different panels in the Hall.

Once the tour was done the rain had stopped, we found the Bus station, bought our tickets and started back to the apartment.  The Google map said it was approximately a 20 minute walk.  1 hour and 23 minutes later we finally found the apartment.  This city is not on any kind of grid and streets change names and directions at almost every intersection. I thought I had a pretty good sense of direction but we got so lost 3 different times and even asking people for help and trying to use our city map was of no help.  Talk about exhausted..

We were ready for cooking class the next day and very excited.  However.......