A few hours in Florence, Italy

We left Siena and it was almost time for our visiting family to go home 🙁

We all caught the train to Florence, which was the city of their departure airport. We had a few hours before they checked into their hotel and we had a train to Rome. So here's what we did for our time in Florence, which is another beautiful Italian city. 

(In case you're a mojofamily fan reading all of these blogs, you may have noticed that EVERY SINGLE PLACE in Italy has been AWESOME and I'm loving this country!)

We stored our bags in luggage lockers again and then walked into the main area. Our first sight was the duomo and the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. What an impressive sight! It's a people watching place but the architecture and detail in every carving at every level is unreal. 

Our next stop was the Interactive Leonardo da Vinci museum. We were hoping this would capture the attention of everyone in the group. After traveling for so many months, some of the group isn't as into old buildings, churches, and bridges as we were at the beginning of the trip. But this interactive museum was a hit and each person in the group enjoyed at least some part of it. Although the attraction isn't huge, there are a lot of machines and displays to try out. Leonardo da Vinci really must have been a genius - to think about his inventions, try them out, see his handwriting and anatomy and art and architecture... we enjoyed it!  

Then we went to the market centrale to get lunch. The produce and meat public market is on the lower floor, but the upper floor are all restaurant stalls. Each member of the group could choose what they wanted, like a food court at a mall, and then sit together and a common table. It was busy! It was lovely to have so much choice, though, and to see things like Asian dumplings and fresh salad foods... this was particularly awesome after some time of some limited food choices while traveling in the Balkans.

 

Then we had to say goodbye to our family. We hugged goodbye and they went to focus on nap time.

Our family decided not to pursue any art galleries after all and enjoy walking around the city. There are statues and amazing buildings everywhere. 

We walked to the Ponte Vecchio bridge and then got our bags and boarded our train for Rome.