Although Florence is known as the seat of the Italian Renaissance, we were unfortunately less than impressed with the city.  First of all, it was unseasonably hot - in the mid 90s.  We invisioned a quaint Tuscan city, but Florence is large and CROWDED.  We arrived on a Sunday afternoon and went directly to the Ufizzi gallery, which holds one of the best Italian Renaissance art collects in the world, including Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and others.  But, the line was too long, and it was too hot to deal with it.  And it was closed on the fourth monday of the month, so oh well, maybe next time.

We did visit the History of Science Museum, which holds an exhibit about Galileos "invention" of the telescope.  He did not invent it, you know, he just perfected the Dutch invention.  We also visited the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, commonly known as the Duomo.  The facade was beautiful, with marble of white, green, and pink.  For two non-catholics, we sure have visited a lot of catholic churches!

Matthew was given a book about Italian restaurants for his birthday from Andrew and Gran, and we put it to good use in Florence - we had a great dinner, with the highlight of penne with a wild boar sauce - yum!

We got sick of Florence on Monday and took a day trip to a little Tuscan town called Lucca.  Lucca was founded by the Etruscans and became a Roman colony in 180 BC (according to Wikipedia).  The Roman city walls are intact, and we enjoyed exploring the inner city.  It was more of the Tuscan experience we were looking for, but next time, I would like to escape to the hills and stay at a guesthouse on a vinyard somewhere.