Europe 2016 Sept 23rd Day 26 Florence

First morning in Florence, so start with the healthy breakfast again (boring) before heading to the Laundromat to get that weeks worth of laundry done. Left Jane to do it this time while I went for a walk for an hour after getting her a coffee. Just a delightful stroll around the streets and alleyways looking at the architecture and knockers and grates of course. Also found the most amazing horse rings (ferri da cavallo and arpioni ) and lantern/torch holders in the walls, some were massive. Returned to find the washing not complete due to a machine not spinning ( or operator's error), so Jane went for a walk while I put the clothes through the dryer a couple of times. When complete and Jane had returned we stopped for a coffee and pastry before returning the laundry to the room and heading out again.
As I had purchased skip the line tickets for the Uffizi at 1pm we just walked until then and then spent the next couple of hours looking at the most marvelous art works, painting's, sculptures and ceilings in this rather unique art gallery. Not enough Botticelli's, Leonardo's or Michaelangelo's for my liking, but a lot of Medici history.
By then it was almost 3pm so back to the room for some lunch and a quick siesta before heading out again for more sightseeing. Passed the most beautiful garden which belonged to the university but couldn't get in. Other than that just lots of buildings, churches and streets to walk, wander, look into and observe.
Got to The Accademia Gallery in time for our 6pm viewing to be met by massive line. Oh no!!!!! Because there were a couple of lines I just walked up to an official looking guy to ask which one we should join and he took us straight to the front, past everybody and into the museum. Amazing, not sure why but who cares, I say it's my good looks working again.
This was much more than I expected as not a great fan of sculptures. David was massive, I really was not expecting it to be so large and really was impressive from every angle. So glad I came to see it. The rest of the gallery was really interesting as well as a room just devoted to the plaster casts. Also of great interest was all the panel paintings upstairs, just incredible and so beautiful. Sat and watched a short video on how they are made and the process is both long and meticulous to get the end result; very good.
After this it was off to the San Lorenzo markets to look at the crap, oops I mean high quality not overpriced craft items not produced in China, before going inside to the food Hall which was just great. Had a beer or two before we slowly walked back to the hotel through the high class district of the city. Most enjoyable and didn't cost me a cent. Lucky again.
After we had dropped some gear in the room, we headed back to a little restaurant we had passed and consumed a nice meal ( gnocchi gorgonzola was superb) and vino. On the way home we stopped at the pastry shop opposite our hotel and Jane got a creme caramel and I, a glazed slice of orange dipped in chocolate, which we had in the room with a little vino; excellent end to a long and enjoyable day.