Florence

Not much happened on Thursday that was worthy of pictures. We went to a great museum on the history of psychiatric treatment in Italy. Then on the weekend we traveled to Florence. We took a fast train from Rome, went over 300 km per hour. In many ways Florence is quite different from Rome. Much smaller, no need for buses or subways. Fewer people who look like they actually live and work there. Everybody looks like a tourist. Some look like very wealthy tourists. All wearing their furs and jewelry. Less traffic and less noisy. In other ways, Rome and Florence are similar. None of the streets are parallel or perpendicular to each other. The streets remind me of the medieval section of Rome.
They really stick it to the tourists in Florence. All the churches charge admission. They wanted four euros just to visit the baptistry of one church. Visited two great museums, the Academe and the Uffizi. And the river area is very nice.
We had great food. Thank you to Danilo Mori for his restaurant guidance. In two weeks he has not steered me wrong once! Did some shopping. They have many stores in Florence in a very small area. And Florence has some great open air shopping areas. It was very cold there. Certainly no snow like home, but I had to wear my winter coat with the hood up most of the time.
Got to see the mausoleum of Michaelangelo and Galileo. Visited my namesake's tomb, St. Lawrence, in San Lorenzo church. But they still charged me admission and they wouldn't let me take a picture! We went to mass on Sunday morning in the big cathedral (pictures included) celebrated by the bishop of Florence. One of the pictures I included is a tribute to Florence Nightingale, who although she was British, she was born in Florence. I think most of the other pictures are self explanatory. There are many pictures to be included.