Sunday, June 8, 2008

Sunday Sightseeing

Kristen made it here on Tuesday, though one of her bags took a while longer. I’ll leave it to her to describe her process of getting used to Italy. Today was our first day of exploring and sightseeing together, and we wanted to go to the Rose Garden, which is only open for another week (and is located very close to the Iris Garden). We went there by bus and got off a stop early, at the church of San Miniato al Monte, an 11th century Romanesque church located a little above the Piazzale Michelangelo. I really like this style of church for its simplicity, and this one boasted some nice frescoes as well, as well as a gilded mosaic above the altar. We’ll have to come back sometime to hear the monks chanting (apparently they do that every afternoon). We then walked down to the Piazzale Michelangelo, but didn’t linger for too long since it started lightly raining. Right there was the Rose Garden, which we walked through, but unfortunately it seems like it was a few weeks too late for roses – most of them had already bloomed. So we just walked back into the city, stopping to get gelato (ricotta & figs, and orange chocolate, among other flavors) on the way before taking the bus back to the apartment.

Later this afternoon, we went to Ikea for a couple of small things. It seemed like half of Florence was there – probably a consequence of it being one of the very few stores that are open on Sunday.

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