Florence has some atmosphere too

Photo was taken while walking out on the street where our hotel was. Through the arches was a plaza where we had late night meals and a lunch or two. Turning right was the main square with the Duomo a couple of blocks away.  

Having lunch in the aforementioned plaza. Note accordion players in background playing Italian songs. Unfortunately they were short on 50s music.

One of the narrow streets, there were some more like this. All seemed to provide deep shade.

There are a lot of positions I would not have wanted to hold in olden days and knight is one of them.  Armor wearing does not look comfortable, sight lines out of most of the helmets look pretty poor, the weight of the weapons appear to be a bit more than I could have handled on a good day, and the consequences of being in conflict seem to be pretty severe.

Oh, and as far as getting into one of these armor suits, they appear to only come in small sizes.  Apparently there were no large broad shouldered knights.

And this is the Duomo, or St Mary of the Flowers Basilica. There were three buildings, a Basilica (church), a tower, and a baptistery (separate building just for baptisms). These buildings were built by the Medici's not because the town needed another church as far as I could tell, but because they thought they needed a bigger fancier one than any other family. You know, my church tower is bigger than….

One thing this does is employ artists, the ceiling inside of the baptistery was amazing. The roof had concentric panels that told bible stories, Joseph, Creation, Jesus' life, and events from Genesis. The doors were 3-d carved, cast bronze.  

Back side of the Duomo at night - it is most impressive - day or night.

Lots of statutes of Hercules beating the crap out of someone, male or female, apparently does not matter, usually with a club though occasionally he strangled people. There is one statute we saw where another Greek god he was wrestling grabbed Hercules where it would get his, Hercules', attention. As a result of seeing all these statutes, I am no longer a fan of the big H.

Check out one of Cosimo Medici's murals. This is the Great Hall in one of his houses.  

The view of the same wall from the balcony.

And a view of the ceiling.

He liked art

The "lucky boar of Florence".  People wait in line to touch this bronze pig and get their photo taken.  Now I will not get sick, will make lots of money, come back to Florence, have lots of children, triumph over my enemies, win lotteries, drive fast cars, and have a picture made of me touching the the lucky boar of Florence. I don't know how lucky this boar was, one of my favorite meals I had while in town was pasta and boar sauce (that one not so lucky).