Piazza della Signoria

‍When I returned to the room after breakfast, John was on the phone.  It turned out that during the evening Matt's fever Rose to 104 and the aides called 911 and Matt was transport to Alexandria Hospital.  He was admitted to the ICU there (John didn't mention that Matt was in the ICU until later in the afternoon when I asked him about the phone call).  John spoke to the nurse who told him that they thought the fever was because of a urinary tract infection.  John provided or health insurance information and said he would call them later in the day to get an update.

We had the day to ourselves to explore, but talking with the hospital resulted in us getting out later than planned.  We decided to go to the Cathedral Museum first.  We learned a lot about the contribution of the Duomo.  As we were leaving the museum John noticed the skies are darkening, so we returned to the hotel to pick up our umbrella and the rain ponchos we had been given in Rome.  While we were in the hotel we heard a lot of thunder. 

We decided to get lunch before going to the next museum.  We selected two restaurants near the hotel, but in the direction we would be heading to the museum.  We found the first restaurant on our list easily enough and were seated right away.  We were given menus and began selecting what we wanted to eat and drink.  But no one came to our table to take off order.  Then I noticed a table that had been empty when we were seated who had drinks and bread.  We waited a few minutes longer and then left.  Our second choice restaurant seated us; provided menus and told us about the specials; and came back and took our order.  Meanwhile, it began to rain pretty hard.  Our meal was good and we finished when it looked like the rain had subsided.  Unfortunately, it was just a false sense of security, because it started pouring within a about a block.  We tried sharing an umbrella, but I just got soaked, so we both stopped and put on our rain ponchos. 

At the Galileo Museum we stuffed our backpack, ponchos and umbrella in a locker, and purchased our tickets.  We were able to download the Museum app and because I had my Bluetooth headphones with me I could listen to commentary on each of the rooms.  John was only able to read text.  However, most of the display cases include information in English.  We toured the museum long enough for my sandals to dry out (no need for the hair dryer).

We completed the tour and returned to the hotel to shower and meet the group at 5:30 for a tour of the Ufitzi Gallery.  The Ufitzi was very impressive and I got to see several paintings I have seen in books.

After the tour, John and I walked to the river and crossed the bridge with all the gold shops just to look.  We considered having dinner on the other side of the river, but since we weren't very hungry, we decided to get soup or something light near too the hotel and to get some gelato at the shop or guide recommended (Perché no!). So we went back to the Yellow Bar.  I had vegetable soup and John had bread soup.  Both were closer to stews than soup.  I enjoyed mine, but there were too many green vegetables in his four hours liking.  I also had a bottle of the Toscana beer.  Then we had for the Gelato store where I got black cherry and hazelnut and John got black cherry and a cream.  I liked mine a lot, John thought his was just okay, since he prefers Lemon and they didn't have that.  We returned to the hotel and John called the hospital to get an update on Matt.  Matt's fever had gone up again and they still didn't know what the bacteria was, yet.  Matt was asleep, so we didn't get to speak with him.  Then it was time to pack so we could leave for Venice in the morning.  Looking forward to Venice.Read more