More Florence

Saturday morning we slept in, and went shopping in the very nice central mercado. 

Saturday afternoon, we visited the San Lorenzo church, one of the major churches in Florence.  Interestingly, they never installed the facade, it is still rough. This included some bronze panels by Michelangelo.

In the evening, we went to the English language mass at the Duomo. While waiting for the Saturday evening mass, we sat and people watched near the Duomo

On Sunday, we got up early and visited the Acadamia, where the original statue of Daviid is located.  We had an early admission ticket, so we were ahead of the masses.  In addition to MIchaelanglo's statue of David, there was an exhibit of art related to St. Francis.    In a separate part of the museum, there were also interesting musical instruments, including Stradivarius violins By the time we were ready to leave, the place was packed with tour groups.     

After the Acadamia, we went to the central market, where we had lunch.

Sunday evening, we went to vespers, and then to a mass with an organ.   Yes, we have been attending several masses at the Duomo, each for it's own reason.

We ended up sitting right next to the organist.   After mass we chatted with him for a few minutes.   Sandi's sister Peg is the music director for her church, so we had something in common with him.  He was a super-nice guy, and suggested that if Peg visited she could play his amazing organ.  His name is David Jackson; he has a father from Birmingham and a mother from Florence.  He has two PhDs, including one in composition.   The closing music was improvised, which made it especially impressive.   We made a video of him playing the closing music, putting it up as a private video on Youtube.   

We had a nice dinner at a restaurant off the main square, with a very nice waiter,  watching his family eat dinner, and then went to a chamber orchestra concert, including Vivaldi's Four Seasons and Mozaart's A Little Night Music.

On Monday morning, we headed for the church of the Santa Croce, another huge and impressive church, containing the tombs of Dante, Galileo, Machiavelli, and Michelangelo.  An amazing collection of people to be in one city, let alone buried in one church.

We went to our favorite panini place, for the third time; they remembered us.   

After lunch we headed for the church of Santa Maria Novelle, near the train station.  It was perhaps a bit less impressive than the other churches, but had interesting frescos.

Sandi needed to make a business call, but we easily made it back to the apartment in time.  

Tuesday we will leave at noon for Assisi.