Florence 1st June

Left Venice nice and early and headed off to Florence.
We passed many fields of red poppies on the way. They grow wild here.
The poppies were the first thing to grow on the soldiers graves in the churned up earth of Flanders Fields in Belgium after the first world war. It's the reason we wear red poppies on Remembrance Day.
  We stopped off at Bologna for a coffee stop, the home of Bolognaise sauce and Ducati motor bikes.

From there we drove through the Apenine Range via many tunnels and bridges.
The entire countryside is picture perfect, we just couldn't stop to take a picture.
  Florence is amazing.
We walked through the streets filled with buildings dating back to the 1400's.
Steven, who hardly ever eats deserts or ice cream has developed a taste for Gelatos and is ordering them in ever increasing sizes.

The Italians are wild drivers, cars are pulling out and speeding through what appear to be pedestrian zones. Multilane roundabouts are completely unrecognizable, what should be 2 lanes appears to be 6.5 lanes, but few people seem to get annoyed. It's just the way it is. 

 This church was designed by Michael Angelo, it's supposed to be clad in marble but Michael got a job with the Pope and Lost interest in finishing it.

 
  

We found the statue of David outside the church. It is about five metres tall. It was sculptured with large hands and feet because it was originally to be displayed high up and then it would have looked in proportion. His other appendage is particularly small. This is so that men don't feel inferior when they look at it.
David was chosen by the government to signify strength and their victory over the Medici family who dominated the city using their wealth.

 
When the Medici family moved back into the City and more or less took over, they had a statue placed to the right of David, this one was of Hercules slaying some poor soul, the figure being slain is looking to David for help. 
The message behind this to the City is, you are strong, but we are stronger. Art and politics were very strong back then.
Some years later The Grand Duke Cosimo took over and placed a large statue of Neptune to the left of David, Neptune is glaring at David. The message is, you may have conquered a giant,but I have conquered the sea.

 







 







The military have made their presence obvious here since recent terrorist acts around the world. Although so far Italy has been spared.


 





After Florence we headed off to Montecatini and to our Hotel.
We had a lovely dinner of Pasta, Chicken and Ice Cream thingy. 



We headed out for a walk around the town. It's a busy little place and everyone is out for a Saturday night.
We bought some beer and went home.

This marks the two week point of our holiday. It's all going too fast.