Today was such a fun day. We did a brief walk around Florence, hitting the highlights again with Bob and Susan. This time I got a photo of the actual grill through which babies were passed to the foundling hospital. They had to fit through the grid, and were placed on a soft cushion then taken to the wet nurse area. The grid looked absolutely tiny, only small babies were accepted, older children had to go elsewhere.
Shoot, Susan took the photo, I forgot my camera, I’ll post later.
Then we packed up and took a taxi to San Miniato, a medieval village that was our start point for the Via Francigena. We walked all over town, then on our way to hotel (an old convent), took the wrong road. All together walked 10 miles, not really our plan. But Rick said, ok, think I can do 15 tomorrow. We knew that there was no support/cafes/nothing for the entire 15 miles, so found sandwiches for the next day. Only options were flatbread with ham and cheese, or focaccia with ham and cheese. Rick’s had to toss vegetarianism and GF to the wayside, though we keep trying.
My first church, right in the center of town, huge. But this was just one of maybe 5 that we saw? Huge and in such a tiny town. Can’t imagine how they afforded or made them. This one is the Cathedral of Sant Maria and San Genesis, first erected in the 1200’s, enlarged in the 1400’s.
Random view between 2 windows.
Gorgeous town.
One of the first walks was after the church and up the hill to the Torre de Frederico II. Hadn’t started the hike and already climbing.
The tower was built between 1217-1223, destroyed by the Germans, then rebuilt exactly. Amazing that they were building things like this in the 1200’s. I bought tickets for all of us, started up the open staircase and got all of one flight up when I realized – nope. But I tried!
View from next to the tower and us sitting next to the view.
We’d had a big breakfast at our hotel and around 3 started getting hungry, we stopped to look at a restaurant and a young guy came running out – we can have you if you come in now, closing at 4. Oh right – nothing between 4 and 8 generally – we’d be WAY too tired to make it, so had lunch and then after all our walking and resting a bit, went back out for gelato. I’ve actually never liked gelato much, but this was so good! We all had a very small one, then Rick and I looked at each other and went right back for another one, a perfect dinner.
We expected to be asleep by 9, but Rick was enjoying the book, The Wager, so much we stayed up till 10:20, crazy, but he finished it!
Reb's Walks! 