Day 28 - Sunday 2 May - Florence

Firenze (Florence) for the day - wet and cold. Saw the David and wandered around Florence before heading back and then having dinner at Il Pruneta - lovely mussels but the seafood kebab gave Graham food poisoning….

So, how could we not have recognised this as the Duomo of Florence? - Maybe because when we first saw it, we were focused on trying to read the map to get us to the Acadamie.... (and it was pouring rain)

Another view of part of the church

Amazing frescos - nothing like I had expected

I snuck this picture in the Acadamie before we were told we were not allowed to take photos anywhere inside, not just no photos of the David.... the marble in the staue of David was luminous and the detail Michelangelo was able to sculpt was quite remarkable - it truly was a beautiful creation

It certainly was wet - and I think I drove Graham mad telling him we weren't seeing the city at its best

Then there were these architectural marvels -I guess it's the architecture that really stands out about this city

Not sure of the name of this church......

again the buildings are beautiful

Even the street lamps had character!

The windows in the main shopping precinct - not that we shopped much

So we got to take a picture of the David from the fake outside the Uffizzi Gallery (nothing like the real thing) - by the time we got here, the line was wrapped twice around the block!

Some more of the statues outside the Uffizzi

Neptune depicted

This was the line to get into the gallery - decided we weren't 'arty' enough to stand in the line. One day it might be nice to come back and spend a week in Florence, to let the city 'soak' into us.. we didn't really have much time here, so wasn't particularly impressed...

The famous ponte vecchio bridge with the shops (jewelry as it turns out) on top of it

The Duomo in the background

Another example of the elaborate street lamps

That's a soccer field between the water and the wall.........

He's pointing the way - 'All art has been contemporary'

The sea of umbrellas that confronted us as we came out of the ponte vecchio

The Cathedral really did dominate the city, from one place to the next - this taken from behind in the Duomo square

We had lunch in a wet cafe across from this part of the cathedral

Good to see some people didn't take themselves too seriously!!!!

Day 27 - Saturday 1 May - Spoleto to Florence (Impruneta)

Drove to Firenze and then had a short tour of the Chianti vineyards before heading back to Impruneta to have late lunch in the town and a few drinks on the terrace at our lovely Agriturismo vineyard.

 The Impruneta town square - they were just packing up from market day

 The view of the Chianti vineyards

 Our 'farmyard'......

The view from our farm over the rolling hills - weather was ordinary

 
 Pool was lovely to look at, but too cold for swimming - in fact it rained off and on most of the day

The breakfast room

Dinner at Bella Vista - lovely - the biggest steak we’ve ever seen and wild boar. Gorgeous chocolate cake for dessert.

Nothing really open because of May Day.

Day 26 - Friday 30 April - Spoleto

Got up early to go to the post office for a box to post the presents home - bit of an ordeal making myself understood, but came back with the job done. Made this a stay home/window shopping sort of day. Lazed around on the terrace not doing much at all. Walked up and had lunch in the square near the Arch of Drusus - bought a table runner made in Montefalco from a shop which has one of it’s walls as the arch!

 Lovely architecture throughout the town..

 Connecting buildings across the road

 The steps leading to the town's Duomo - a beautiful church

 A combination of carvings and frescos made with tiles

 the view up the steps from the piazza in front of the Duomo

The fresco sparkled in the sun - glorious!

The 'new' buildings are built on the foundations of ancient ones....

Even the shops have been built around them - this is the Arch of Drusus

The embroidery shop had one side of the arch as its wall!!

A sanctuary in the middle of town

Another road through a building.......

Dinner at Apollinare again.

Day 25 - Thursday 29 April - Bevagna and Monteluco

Bevagna and Montefalco - driving tour around the area. Started at Monteluco (the sacred hill behind Spoleto that I had wanted to walk up....) and couldn’t see anything from the top!!! I did agree with Graham that it was a good thing we hadn’t walked all that way to ‘not find’ the view!! By the time we got to Bevagna, we were a bit ‘over’ walking around another town… so we had lunch and then drove the long way back to Spoleto through Montefalco and the vineyards….

 The best 'view' we could get from the sacred mountain of Monteluco, over the Spoleto valley

 This one was a little better, but was taken from the side of the road, rather than any vantage point...

 The Bevagna town wall

 Now, if only we weren't driving - although they don't really do wine tasting over here, not like back home.

 You can see why people think the Barossa Valley reminds them of Italy

 The view back to Montefalco

Had the rest of the ravioli for dinner - and discovered that the week old the bread fried in olive oil was really delicious….. Made a sort of bruschetta with the left over tomatoes - yum!

Day 24 - Wednesday 28 April - Assisi and Spello

Assisi and Spello - visited the church in Assisi - beautiful - walked the length of the town and had lunch in a little bar overlooking the view - just paninis. On the way back, stopped at Spello for another walk up hill and a gelato - lovely little town with flowers in pots everywhere, but glad we didn’t end up staying here - too small, I think….

 The view over the valley between buildings in Assisi

 One of the 'other' churches in Assisi

 It had the feel of a festival, but it was just an ordinary day

 The main square at the top of the hill after we had used the escalators to get up form the car park - none of the towns really let you drive through them - you park and walk

 The valley and another church in the background - it was bit windy..
 The side view of Assisi from the top square

 The main street on entering the town

 Here it is - the Church of Assisi - couldn't take photos inside, but hte whole church is covered with amazing frescos - all painted to tell the story of Christ

 The plaque explaining the statue....

 The arches are on one side of the square leading up to the church - view straight down the Spoleto vally

 The view from the church looking back to the town

 Many steps to get to the top entrance, or there was also a door on the left under the arch

Yet another church in the main part of Assisi

 Spello - very steep roads - and narrow....

 There were flowers everywhere in this town - on walls

 ...in pots

 The view over the valley from Spello

 Lovely yellow stone on the buildings

 It was certainly hard work, especially after we had walked form one end of Assisi to the other - now we walked from one end of Spello to the other - all up hill!

 but in the end....

it was worth it.... that's Assisi in the distance, taken from the top of Spello.

Had dinner at Apollinaire - a restaurant up the alley from Liberty square - very nice - had one of the special 4 courses of local cuisine - beautiful cheese pastry and the pork with pear was divine.