Morse

Morse
Morse & friend

Friday, 23 March 2012

Turkey, Florence and Rome - 21-22 March 2012

Dear Friends, after a leisurely start on Wednesday, we were driven by Gianluca & Tanya up into the hills to visit the home of an extremely eccentric Englishman, Frederick Stibbert, who was an incredible collector. He bought three villas in a row to house his magnificent purchases of paintings, tapestries, furnishing, armour, stained glass & fans. We have never seen anything like it. He had the villas redesigned in a lavish fashion and fortunately on his death, left everything to Florence.



Then we had decadent cakes – some of us had very rich hot chocolate at a lovely café where people are known to eat every day, made us think of Café 3460, chatted with Tanya and set off to explore the Medici Town Hall building. What a wonderful place that is, with so much to see. We were tired and hungry by 2pm, so Tanya left us and we ate at one of her favourite restaurants, a little place downstairs. It wasn’t as good as the previous lunches, but it was a different experience. We walked back home, ordered tea & coffee and I went to bed & stayed put. Wes went walking and exploring, much to my delight.



This morning, after breakfast, we met Tanya at the Uffizzi and spent 4 wonderful hours there including a tea break. We saw works by many early painters including Botticelli, da Vinci & Michelangelo. We were treated to a special viewing of the Vasari Corridor, the Medicis secret walkway from Palazzo Vecchio to the Pitti Palace. The Corridor is hung with self-portraits by all the famous artists of note and we were the only ones there at the time. We stopped for lunch at an indoor/outdoor cafe where Wes had spaghetti and Tanya & I had spinach & cuttlefish. During lunch a fight broke out in the piazza between some druggies and a trader who had lost his temper with them. Tanya was embarrassed, but we were interested to see how everything and everyone stopped to watch this battle, which was eventually sorted out by the local police. Then we walked to a new gelataria, where we had rose petal flavoured gelati!

 Wes posing before the badly placed modern art in our sitting area.


The rest of the afternoon was in the Boboli Gardens and the Pitti Palace, where we absorbed culture and history until our heads were spinning. As we walked back to our hotel, we invited Tanya to join us for a drink at Procacci, a small wine bar which has been on site since 1885. We sampled three different reds and swapped travel stories.

Tomorrow we have a rest from Tanya and she from us, as we will be driven to Siena, where we will spend the morning, returning to Florence at lunchtime. So many people told us we should go there, and we are obeying their wishes. I’ll be in touch again before we leave for Rome on Sunday.

Our bedroom in the palazzo

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