An afternoon in Firenze

If you're from Fayetteville, then you are familiar with the faux pig on the UA campus that looks like this one. Here's the original razorback. I sure hope the purses in the background aren't made of pigskin!



Above is a photo of the Bargello Palace; it's the oldest building in Florence.

Below is a shot from the Ponte Vecchio. This is where I purchased some gold jewelry in 2000. The poor economy has had a negative effect on the jewelry in the windows. This time the jewelry appeared to be very thin gold with lots of semi-precious stones. Nothing tempted me this time! (Bill sighed a sigh of relief!)



Here is Il Duomo. The dome is spectacular. Inside the dome is a painting of the Last Judgment. At Billy's request, we climbed the dome in 2000. Unfortunately, Billy met his own hell when he developed a severe case of acrophobia on the gallery surrounding the base of the dome. OK, so I looked up the name for fear of heights in Wikipedia.



Here is the campanile.



And yet another view of Il Duomo.



This is the Palazzo Medici. It is a significant Renaissance building.



So I took lots of pictures of it.



This is the cortile or inside courtyard.



The lighting was good, so I kept taking more and more pictures.



Nearby are the Medici Chapels. One of the chapels was designed by Michelangelo. Unfortunately, it was closed by the time we arrived. Also closed was the Laurentian Library. I suppose that sometime we'll have to plan to visit Florence again with our favorite guide...Emilio, not Dante!