We like Rick Steves’ books and often use his tours as the basis for our explorations. Today, we took two of his Florence tours: the Renaissance Walk, which is an overview of Florence from the Duomo to the Arno (and a bit beyond) and the Duomo Museum tour. We also visited the other sites covered by the Duomo’s Ghilberti Pass (the Bapistery (which is being renovated) and the Crypt of Santa Reparata (inside the Duomo itself – having the pass meant we didn’t have to stand in the very long line for free entry to the Duomo).

I took many, many pictures. Here are some of the best.

From our AirBnB to the Duomo

Around the Doumo

From the Duomo to Piazzza della Signoria

Piazza della Signoria

Outside the Uffizi Gallery

Ponte Vecchio and Oltarno

Returning to the Duomo

The Bapistery and the Cathedral itself

Duomo Museum (much of the art you see on the Duomo buildings isn’t original – the originals are in the museum!)

And one last Golden Hour photo on the way back to our AirBnB

It was a rather full day.

We’re going to be in Florence for a few days. The obvious way to get to Florence from Venice is to take the train – it’s comfortable, fast, and cheap. But our travel agent, Dave Natale, suggested we do something else – take a DayTrip so that we could explore a bit of the countryside on our way to Florence.

Duccio, our driver, picked us up at the port just before 9am and we began our adventure. We’d chosen two stops – the first was about an hour down the road in Arquà Petrarca, home of Petrarch‘s house and tomb. We visited both; we also enjoyed a cappuccino at the local bar.

Our next stop was about an hour later in Ferrara. When we told our cruise director that we were stopping there, she suggested we try a local specialty, Cappellacci di Zucca (a pumpkin-stuffed pasta with sage), and our driver said we should have it at Al Brindisi, which claims to be the oldest tavern restaurant in the world. The visit was a success, though I’m not sure that their musical instrument collection really fits the “old restaurant” theme.

We also made a short trip through Ferrara’s old Jewish Ghetto and wandered around the downtown for a while. It was a busy weekend in Ferrara – they were holding an “Open Monuments” event, giving free admission and guided tours to twenty or so of their ancient buildings; unfortunately, we didn’t have time to take advantage. There was also a Dark Arts festival featuring Goth and Steampunk cosplayers, and as we drove out of town, we saw signs for a tattoo festival, too. An interesting place indeed!

It took another couple of hours to reach our apartment in Florence; the only real sight we saw on our way was one of the old city gates.

Taking a DayTrip was definitely more interesting than taking the train would have been, but it did take a lot longer and cost significantly more.

We spent the rest of the afternoon getting settled; Florence is a busy place (our apartment is just across from the main train station), but we did manage to find a quiet spot for dinner and a supermarket to pick up breakfast supplies.

Tomorrow, we start exploring the city; we’ve bought tickets for the Duomo complex for tomorrow and have Uffizi tickets for Tuesday. Onward!

We had planned to take the “Row Venice” excursion and learn how to row a gondola, but it got cancelled due to the weather forecast, so we joined the group heading to Ca’Macana to learn about the history of masks in Venice and how they’re made today. The shop was a short walk from our dock.

When we reached the shop, we were greeted by Victoria, who’s been making masks for 15 years (a veritable newcomer!). She showed us a short presentation about the history of masks, demonstrated how to make a mask, and let us handle some masks (which turned out to be a problem for me – my hand turned red and started to itch; fortunately, Venice has fountains everywhere and I was able to rinse off whatever was bothering me as soon as we left the shop).

Some people stayed at the shop to make their own masks, but Diane and I wandered back to the ship for lunch.

The weather was better than the forecast, so we decided to take a gondola ride. We’d passed a gondola stop on our way back from the mask shop, so we walked there. There were two gondolas parked at the stop, but no gondoliers!

We waited for 15 minutes and were ready to give up; then my phone rang. It was Jean, one of our new friends who wanted to go out exploring with us (her sister wanted to stay on the ship and Jean didn’t want to explore on her own). We went back to the ship to meet her and then headed back to the stop – there were still two gondolas parked, but now there were gondoliers, too. Off we went for a quick tour of the Dorsoduro and the Grand Canal!

The gondola ride was short but fun. We walked around for another half-hour until it started to drizzle fairly seriously; we returned to the ship before the skies really opened up.

Our farewell dinner was enjoyable and delicious. Diane and I had had our waiter Ion on our Rhine cruise last year; he remembered that our table always ordered French fries for dinner…so he brought a bowl for us to have with the main course (beef tenderloin or pan-fried branzano), though it wasn’t on the menu.

We leave Venice early tomorrow. The week here has been excellent, but we’re ready for something different.

This morning, we took a trip to the Po River Delta for a wildlife-spotting cruise (lots of birds).

We drove back to Chioggia and boarded the S. S. La Venezia for our final sailing through the Venetian Lagoon and to the port of San Basilio, where we’d begun our trip Sunday afternoon. Louisa, our cruise director, gave us a talk about the lagoon, the rising seas, the tides in Venice, and how they’re trying to keep the water from overwhelming the city (progress has been made, but it is by no means certain that Venice will be saved). I kept getting distracted by the views outside.

The clouds returned late in the day, and the weather forecast is sufficiently uncertain that they cancelled the “Row Venice” excursion that we’d planned on taking tomorrow. We’ll have to walk instead!

This afternoon, we took an excursion out into the countryside to visit Tenuta Ca’Zen in the Po River Delta for a tasting of “local products” (cured meats, cheeses, breads, and wines from the estate). Our trip took us on foot through Chioggia (which looked quite different without the weekly market on the main street), on Bragozzi Ulisse across the lagoon, and on country roads to the estate, where we met the owner and heard the story of Lord Byron and his last great love, Teresa Gamba. She even shared his poem to Teresa, Stanzas to the Po.

After we returned to the ship, we had an hour to rest up before the progressive dinner, which took us “backstage” (or maybe I should say “below decks”) and let us see parts of the ship usually off-limits to the passengers, including the galley, the engine room, the laundry, the crew’s area, and the bridge. It’s impressive to see how the work gets done!