Florence

Auto stop on the road to Florence

It was rainy much of the time we were in Florence, which kept it nice and cool. The old center of the city is mostly car-free, which is nice for Eddie to walk around. On Thursday we walked in Le Cascine, a big park along the river Arno near our hotel. We'd heard there were playgrounds, but we went a long way without seeing any. Eventually we turned around and headed into the city along the river. We came to Ponte Vecchio, a bridge which is completely covered in two-story buildings on both sides, so that you don't even know it's a bridge. It's all jewelry shops now; Eddie like to look at the shiny things, or maybe that was his mother. A couple blocks from the far side of the bridge (south) is the flat where Nonno once lived for 6 months, long ago.  Back on the north side, Eddie got out and walked with us toward the Palazzo Vecchio, where a waiter at a restaurant (which all have tables outside) accosted him: "Giovanotto! Dove vai?" Hey kid! Where are you going? Eddie gave him a look and kept going.

On Friday we all visited the chapel of the Medici, where they're all buried. Sometimes Eddie gets restive in museums, but he liked this one. He mostly enjoyed pictures of babies. He is always impressed going into high-vaulted rooms, like the vast central cupola of the chapel. He especially likes making loud echoes...

When we left, all around there was a big open-air market, with kiosks and stands selling all sorts of things, filling the streets for blocks. We wended our way through the crowds and found a place to eat called Da Pinocchio. Florence has a lot of good food for Eddie: Ribollita, a kind of bread soup, and plates of salty cheeses with honey, a new favorite. After lunch we visited the Duomo (cathedral), and Eddie walked all around on the mosaic floors. Then Nonno took him back to the hotel, and Eddie fell asleep in his stroller, so Nonno just wheeled the stroller into the room and left him to sleep in it.

On Saturday we all headed south of the river. We found a trattoria that Nonno recalled fondly, the Quattro Leoni (Four Lions.) Eddie used his bread to do "scarpetta"—wipe up his plate! What a good mangione! The waiters liked him, as usual. Eddie has been enjoying lots of salads (he eats everything but the lettuce) and fruit. He also likes bread, which restaurants always bring before the meal, and we have to try to slow him down or he will fill up on nothing but!

Eddie managed to say "neigh" like a horse! He's very proud about it, and now whenever we ask about an animal sound he doesn't know (or some that he does) he will say "neigh" (previously, he would say "bah" when he didn't know; before that it was "meow" and before that "awooga.")
He also learned to say "boh," which is Italian for "I dunno." He does it very well. It's a good all-purpose response to questions in Italian, or a general comment in a discussion.

After lunch we went to the Palazzo Pitti, one of the Medici's main palaces, which now contains a bunch of museums. We all went through the Palatine Gallery, which has lots of statues and paintings, including a big painting of baby Hercules strangling the snakes that came into his crib (which was Eddie's Halloween costume last year.) Eddie put up with all this for a while, but then he got thirsty, so I took him out to drink some water and run around in the Palace's huge courtyard. After the others got out, we all went behind the Palace to the Boboli Gardens, a big park which was once the private garden of the Palace. Part of it is a labyrinth of tall hedges and very steep paths!

Boboli Gardens

Eddie made it to the top of this steep hill all by himself. Then he pointed at his stroller: time to ride now!
He took a little nap in the garden. Then we crossed back over the Ponte Vecchio and got dinner at a kind of creepy place by the Palazzo Vecchio. On the way home we passed by this big boar.

The "Porcellino" at the Mercato Nuovo

On Sunday, all the waiters whistled like birds for Eddie: at lunchtime at the Grotta Guelfa by the Mercato Nuovo (in the center of town), and at dinner at Da Pinocchio by the Mercato San Lorenzo (at the edge of town.) We sure spent a lot of time in markets that day! Eddie tried to whistle too, but he doesn't quite have it down. Between markets we visited the Uffizi, a big museum with tons of important art. Eddie's favorite was a fresco with a cherub who had stolen one of Zeus's thunderbolts—a baby lugging a big heavy thing around, like Eddie when he absconds with a 2-liter water bottle. Eddie made it through a good bit before he got bored and Nonno took him outside.

Poor Eddie missed his afternoon nap, so the next day we hit the road earlier than planned, hoping that he would sleep in the car.