Made it to my 7:15 train out of Rome, arrived on time in Florence, got to my hotel before 9:30, they said my room wouldn't be ready until noon, I dropped my big bag with them and set out walking along the river, crossed the river, walked up an elevation that had to be at least 1/4th mile above where I started, that's my conservative guesstimate, wouldn't be surprised if it were 1/2-mile or more, found a stunning scenic overlook of Florence, took photos, found a small gift that I thought Rebecca would like and bought it, wandered around and found a walk-through rose garden designed by some recently-deceased artist, really adorable and only about 4 other people were wandering through, saw and wandered up an enormous staircase up to a quaint Franciscan church, walked in and relaxed in the peace and quiet, only like 5 other people in the church, chilled out, walked out and back down the huge staircase, down near the bank of a river through some rather polished upscale but still old looking neighborhood that was marked a UNESCO World Heritage Site, wandered through that, on down to this famous bridge, I forget the name of the bridge, but it was teeming with people and had rows of elegant jewelry shops displaying jewelry of gold, diamonds, emeralds, pretty sure I saw some sapphire, wished I had the kind of money it'd require to buy some of the jewelry for my deserving fiance but they cost more than the total cost of my lodging on this whole trip, wandered by the Uffizi museum and galleria di academia, which house David among other things (already reserved my ticket there tomorrow), walked to the piazza outside them which was full of beautiful sculptures including a replica of David which I think has at least some history and fame to itself, took lots of pics of all this using dying batteries...
then walked back to my hotel arriving shortly after noon where my room was ready and waiting and where I now am. all completely spontaneous, this was not a walk I had planned at any time, just a time-killing walk with only the aid of a crude map.
That was just my f*ing morning!!!
