Florence, Food

But enough about art, you really just want to know about the food.  Well, actually, it's not that easy to eat really well in Florence, because of the high percentage of foreigners.   Example:  I saw a sign outside a restaurant:  "Slow Food - Hamburgers - Cheeseburgers - Hot Dogs".  Talk about covering all your bases.   But still, it is the beginning of mushroom season in Florence, and I had the most delicious grilled Porcini mushrooms I have ever had.  And lots of Chianti.   When I was younger, Italian wine was Chianti, and it came in those straw wrapped bottles, which you turned into candle holders, and the wax would drip down on them.   It was the height of an imagined "Greenwich Village" (or hippie?) type of coolness.  Since that period, I have assiduously avoided any wine that came in straw bottles, and Chianti has suffered the consequences.   Except now, in Florence, I have discovered I really like it.

I also had a delicious salad with thinly slice raw artichokes, parmesan cheese, and a bit of summer truffles...    

Florence Part 2

Next the Medici chapels is the San Lorenzo church.  Interestingly, they never got around to doing the facade, so the front looks like this:

Inside, it is more of the modest and severe Renaissance architecture (except for the painted dome):

But the altar doesn't stint on the decorative stones:

There are also a number of auxiliary chapels, with beautiful designs:

We also visited the Church of Santa Maria Novella.   This church has a more Italian Gothic style, with ornamentation inside and out:

Light from stained glass windows:

A side chapel with frescoes:

Part of the frescoes:

The ceiling of another part:

Frescoes on a part of the church off the cloisters:

There is something very moving about seeing all this art in the context for which it was actually created; it's very different than seeing art in a museum on gallery walls.