Today we go to the "BIG" two in Florence..

We have our reservations for 1200 at "Gallery Academia" which is where Michaelangelo's David is located now.  He was originally on the piazza in front of our building but in the 1800's they moved him to  the gallery to protect him from the elements.  They have an exact duplicate in place of where it used to be that Steph got pics of and I think we posted already....

Anyway, after that we have 330 pm reservations at the Uffizi gallery....we wanted to spread them out more but the tickets for Academia were the earliest we could get so we left as much time as possible to see it and still have time in Uffuzi.  Academia is a 20 min(or less) walk and Uffizi is right in front of our building.

Yesterday we saw "The Duomo" or the main church here built in the 1200's that was then the ONLY church....it was a status symbol for the city/states of that time. Pisa and Lucca and Sienna had huge new cathedrals so Florence had to have one and it needed to be the biggest and most spectacular,

 ...notice the people in the second pic.....

After that we were wandering and stumbled into the Medicci Ricardo Palace. The Medicci family was THE leading family of Florence and they were responsible for much of the development of the city as an art and history center over a couple of centuries.