Florence Day 5 Palazzo Pitti

We left our apartment only at 10.30am, starting our day the latest ever this trip. Or was a sale amble toSan Ambrogio Markets for brunch and to get supplies for dinner. There were a great many choices and decisions were difficult to make. We settled for cooked food to reheat in the apartment. Some lentils, stewed pork ribs, spinach and artichokes. We couldn't finish the bottle of wine we got with the accommodation, so Ruby used it to poach pears, and we even had dessert.

Palazzo Pitti was bigger than we thought and spent 3½ hours there. There were many Raphael paintings to admire, with some other artists unknown to us but still beautiful paintings. There were Tintoretto, Tizian, Guercino, Guido Reni and much more. The rooms were ornately decorated and frescoed with Herculean themes. As fitting to the rulers of the renaissance, there was even symmetry and balance in the palace, right down to the way pictures were hung.
So glad we went to the Palazzo for a mere extra 2€ added to our Uffizi tickets.

Ruby and I were comparing the Florence 6 years ago and we realised that there are a great many pizzerias, kebab shops and glitzy boutiques that were not here then. Sadly what's missing though, are the small coffee shops run by old men where we used to have our morning coffes with Kai and Swee. There is a significantly reduces number of small appertivo (evening drinks and nibbles) venues. The girls and us went to a few that had a free buffet spread of nibbles that you could help yourself to when you bought a drink. Did not see a single one of those this trip.

Distance walked 8.4kmRead more