Sunday morning began with meeting our guides at the Academia Gallery. Rather than turning us loose, we were guided through and taught about some important aspects of Renaissance art by a husband and wife team of local guides. Our overall tour guide, Colleen, said that they mentioned to her how our group seemed interested and engaged and how much nicer it was for them when people were like that rather than looking at their watches/phones.
.png)
We finished a little before noon and then were on our own until dinner that night. We had looked for Mass times and found a noon Mass at the cathedral and had even publicized that to our fellow tour members. Unfortunately when we got there we were told that the noon Mass was cancelled and were not able to find our way elsewhere in time.
After getting some lunch we found our way to Santa Maria Novella, which at one time had been connected to been a convent of cloistered nuns. We were able to explore not only the church but the attached museum and cloister. The cloister allowed you to get up close to a lot of frescos and see them where there was plenty of light. One neat thing about this church was all the stained glass--most of the churches we saw on this trip had very little stained class. However, one thing that stuck is is that the people on the stained glass did not have faces.
.png)
By the time we finished we were exhausted (we never realized jet lag would last so long) and returned to our room for a nap. After our nap we walked across the Ponte' Vecchio and explored that side of the river. We walked past the Pitti Palace but decided we were museumed out and so did not go into it. We got gelato across the street. Our final group dinner was Sunday night and included steak and potatoes. Like all our group meals the both the food and the company were great.
 |
| View from the rooftop bar of Hotel Torre Guelfa |