See you Florence. See you in a very long time

Once again  I woke up early to do my own thing in the morning.  I started off at the Medici Chapel.   They had some exhibit on of something, I dunno, but they had a bunch of pieces of Medici art on loan from other museums across Italy, so that was cool.  They were doing some restoration of the grand tombs, so I couldn't get the best views of them, but it was neat seeing the tombs of Lorenzo and Giuliano Medici in the tomb done by Michelangelo.  I appreciate those tombs a lot more, especially after watching that new Starz show, Da Vinci's Demons.   After that, I walked to the Mercato Centrale to find a fruit stand and get some farmer fresh peaches.  I got two good peaches for 70 cents.  I went to the Duomo museum after that.

They were doing some work on the building so a lot of the Bruneschelli stuff on his tools of building the dome was closed, so I guess I didn't get to see the stuff I read about in the book about Brunesechelli and the dome.  But it was cool, I got to see Michelangelo's other Pieta, and Raphael's ugly Mary Magdelene again.  This time however, they had some really nice altarpiece and cross of St. John the Baptist on display, that wasn't there two years ago. So those two pieces were really neat to see.

I also got to look at the finally restored original Lorenzo Ghiberti's "Gates of Paradise"  in display in the courtyard.  Man that stuff is impressive, because even the faded fake one on display on the baptistery doors and at some church in San Francisco looks good. But seeing the O.G. stuff in pristine condition, you honestly see why Michelangelo nicknamed these doors the "Gates of Paradise"

After this,  we had to pack up, and check out the room and move our bags to the storage room. We started off with going inside the Duomo, since I've actually never been inside it before, excluding the Dome.  They had some huge frescos including one of some English mercenary knight, a dope picture of Dante Aligheri, and its cool seeing the Last Supper dome painting from the ground floor.

We then had a nice walk on my street again, past my old apartment, pass the throngs of Chinese tourists before ending up at Santa Croce.  From here, David and I went and looked at all those tombs again to see some frescoes by Giotto and stuff.  It's still neat seeing those tombs of Michelangelo, Galileo, Ghiberti, Machiavelli, and the empty Dante one.

This time I went inside the Pazzi Chapel instead of exiting right away with worn out classmates.  The interior of the cloister is neat, it was designed by Brunelleschi, but the interior of the chapel is whatever.  However, it was sealed for a long time and the interior deteriorated because it was sealed after the fatal Pazzi conspiracy.

After this we walked all the way up to Piazza Michelangelo to get a good view of Florence, since these lazy bums didn't want to climb up the Duomo or the Campanile.  However, the stairs where you get the best view was closed, so everyone had to settle for pictures near the David statue.  After our turn to finally getting a good picture, after this obnoxious Australian bitch took like 50 photos, we finally got to take our pictures.

 We had to stop by I Fratelli one more time to get some Wild Boar salami panini's and enjoyed the throngs of tourists lining up after us.  Went back to get Gelateria La Carria a final time for some cheap yet delicious gelato, and then headed up to my former super market so they could get some Chianti wines.  We cruised to the Piazza del Duomo one more time, before heading to all the market stands to get some Firenze gifts near the San Lorenzo.  I got some good deals on some authentic leather wallets, the 'bring your friend I give you discount' option.  Jeremy and Julian got suckered into buying leather jackets, after the dudes brilliant selling pitch, and got some really nice jackets for 170 euros.  After that, we really had to catch a train back to Roma, and say Ciao to Firenze.  We met a nice mother/daughter couple sight-seeing in Florence, with one of the thickest Alabama Southern accents ever.  But they were nice people, and loved Los Angeles.