And WHY do I listen to Italian weather forecasters?  I've been watching the weather for two weeks prior to this one to know how to prepare and pack for vacation week excursions.  Tuesday and Wednesday were to be rainy with probable thundershowers.  We were in Florence with long sleeved shirts, jeans and rain coats in 75 - 80 degree sunshine.  Today was supposed to be nasty, chilly and wet so I postponed my gardening day with a friend til tomorrow.  There is a perfect blue sky, it's warm with a light breeze.  In the States we complain that the forecasts are often wrong but they are usually in the vicinity.  The Italian weathermen couldn't tell the weather if they were standing outside!  And that's not exaggeration.  We have actually watched a weatherman pointing to a map of Torino and report one type of weather when in fact, had he looked out the window he would have seen that he was wrong and it was just the opposite.  Why forecasters aren't bigger butts of jokes here I'll never understand.

Sweatiness aside, Florence was lovely.  I hadn't been in over twenty years and it was a first for Grace and her friend.  There was unfortunately the issue of traveling to any tourist destination during holiday and school vacation times.  The city center was packed and waits to get into museums were hours long.  We booked tickets through our hotel to see the Galleria dell'Accademia where the original "David" is on display, but couldn't get into the Uffizi or the Duomo. 

Ponte Vecchio

View of city and Pitti Palace

The girls in the Boboli Gardens

dinner

the tower of the Duomo

evidently the thing to do

waiting for the train

We satisfied ourselves with roaming the center, now mostly pedestrian, peeking in shops, eating gelato and spending hours wandering the Boboli Gardens.  Florence is beautiful but simply too touristic, too expensive and too Disneylandish.  And for these reasons it is also awash in beggars and gypsies and pickpockets.  Every local I spoke to warned us about our bags or told horrors stories about one poor tourist or another.  Not even the churches are safe, with vile people snatching wallets while a head is "bowed in prayer".   Saturday we are off to Milan for an overnight.  Then back to the salt mines.  I'm going to go sunbath in the "rain" now.  xxoo me