Tuesday, June 05, 2018

Florence - June 4

Lily was up early today and ready for a run!  It is so fun starting our day together this way.  We tried to run down new streets and see if we could get ourselves lost before using Google Maps to get back.  The getting lost part worked.  The Google Maps was not connecting!  Luckily the saying of "find the dome and you'll find home" really works :)

If you walk 1-minute to the left from our door, you are in front of the Bascilica di Santa Croce with a history dating back to 1294.  The Franciscan church is the largest of its kind and is the final resting place for Michelangelo, Galileo Galilei, Niccolo di Bernardo dei Machiavelli and the composer Gioachino Antonio Rossini.

A beautiful coffee shop we came across we are planning to visit tomorrow - "la Meragerie"

The bakery unknowingly participating in the next of the "croissant (brioche) challenge".  Chocolate, crema, berry, pistachio, and a non-croissant of pineapple.  We also bought some of their cereal bread, which is basically a whole grain bread.  It is heavenly.  And for the record, this bakery is in first place so far...

We have had selfie challenges on our tip so far.  Here Corey was trying to set up and test the hand and voice activated selfie.






Funny thing that the kids like hang out sitting on the spiral staircase.


We scheduled a water color painting class for the afternoon.  We met our painting teacher, Giovanna, at a local bookshop for a coffee and to pick out the post card image we wanted to "try" and paint.

Corey and the kids are in line with Giovanna...where's Waldo?

The lesson began with looking at the pallet of colors in the Florence landscape and trying to individually recreate the colors we each saw.









Then we sketched out the basic landscape of our post cards, twice, on the top and bottom of our sheets of paper, before beginning to layer on the water colors.




While we were painting at our spots overlooking the city a thunder storm rolled in.  The rain on the terracotta roof right above our heads was loud and peaceful all at once.  It was really perfect.


It was a such a special afternoon.  And the results were so much better than any of us expected!





By this point, we were famished.  We headed up the high-end shopping street to Obica, one of our favorite Italian spots.  The food did not disappoint - nor did the walk over with the wet stone streets glittering.  I really cherish the when the kids just walk along together chatting.







The evening ended with gelato at Venchi.  The glato here is 4E per cone to help keep the chocolate wall operational '_'


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