Day 22 Florence has a way of seducing!!!

We woke up kind of late for us, about 9:00!  Then we had an Italian breakfast. Emily looked online for what they eat for breakfast in Italy, it said coffee and a cigarette! LOL We have been drinking "un cafe" or a cup of espresso, but no cigarette! Oh well!  I am not a coffee drinker at all, but the espresso here in Italy is a cultural experience, not only that, it's fantastic!  Even I have some every day, and actually really enjoy it!  We headed to the first place I go each time I've been to Florence is a church called Santa Croce. It's the largest Franciscan church in the world. It's also where a who's who of Florentine's are buried!  Michelangelo, Galileo, Marconi, Rossini, Machiavelli, a monument to Dante who was from Florence but his body is in Ravenna and literally hundreds of others!  It has amazing art in it including frescoes by Giotto, another of my very favorite artists!  He was painting 3-D images in the 1200s when nobody had seen things like that since the Roman Empire fell. He was one of the pioneers of the renaissance, and the guy who designed the bell tower at the Duomo here in Florence. If it weren't for the Black Plague, the renaissance may have happened 150 years earlier. They have a museum to the flood of 1966 in the church when the water was 15 feet high!!  So much amazing art was destroyed or damaged, it's sad!  Just a very cool place!  A great way to learn about the history and vibe of this amazing city!  After that we were going to go to the Bargello, which used to be a prison, but is now an amazing art gallery with some of the best statues in town. But it was closed before 2:00!  That's the only bad part about being here in the off season. Oh well. So we went walking, Florence is a great walking city!  It's nice and small compared to other cities that have the amount of history and sights that they have here!  We walked down a side street off the main drag and got a piece of pizza, a calzone and a plastic cup of white wine each. Then went to another very small church called Orsanmichelle which has some amazing statues on the outside by Donatello among others and went inside. It's was beautiful. Small, intimate and lovely!  They have concerts sometimes in the summer and it would be a great place to see one!  Then we walked back to the apartment, stopped at our new favorite gelato place and had some great gelato and walked home. After talking to our parents and taking a quick nap and went to dinner. We went to a place about 3 blocks away and had a pretty good meal!  Some Gnocchi with cherry tomatoes, zucchini and shrimp that was outstanding!  Pappardelle, which is wide, broad noodles with a Cinghiale ragu, that's wild boar and it was very good!  I picked this place because I read that they have Cinghiale steaks that was supposed to be amazing!  It was kind of tough with lots of connective tissue. Not my fav! We did have a glass each of Brunello De Montalcino, the king of Tuscan wines. It was so inexpensive we had to try it!  It was very good!  Even if the food wasn't our favorite, it was still a great place with very nice people. At the end of the meal, the owner looked at Emily and said, why don't you guys come have a drink at our new bar next door. His son opened a new restaurant attached to the old place and a beautiful bar with it. He was so proud of his son that he wants everyone to see it and make sure it succeeds. It was really sweet. He gave us a free digestivo. A drink to help digest your food. A shot of grappa with some herbal tea like side car with an amazing piece of chocolate. He told us how we should shoot the grappa then sip the tea and then after your taste buds are all alive and jumping you eat the chocolate and it just pops in your mouth!  Really cool!  We ordered a cocktail after that made by this award winning bartender who makes all these crazy concoctions. They were very good!  Then he gave us shots made with pastry cream, sour cherry juice, orange syrup and vodka. It was unlike anything I've ever tasted!  He has won awards with his drinks that he makes using pastry cream!  Very yummy!  I was glad we only had one glass of wine with dinner, otherwise the walk home would've been TOUGH!!!  LOL We made it back and now it's time to sleep!  We have lots to see tomorrow. Have a wonderful day and night and we love and miss all of you!!  Thanks for following our journey as we enter our last week!