It’s our last day in Florence and we spent most of it in church. We visited two churches, both monumental (and official monuments); they are both in use as churches (with small areas reserved for praying), but they’re owned by the State and are historical sites.

The first church was Santa Croce, notable for its permanent residents, including Dante, Galileo, Ghiberti, Machiavelli, and Rossini and its monuments to many other famous Italians like Marconi and Fermi. There’s a lot of other noteworthy art, too, and the place is enormous. It was badly flooded in 1966, with the polluted waters of the Arno filling it to a depth of more than five meters, damaging historical artifacts and requiring years of work to restore them.

The church also has sponsored a Leather School since 1950. Originally, it helped war orphans learn a trade and make a living; now, it trains a broader range of people needing help, and makes most of its money by selling their products (leather jackets, purses, cases, and more). I bought a belt – and I’m confident it was really Made in Italy.

Our second church visit was to Santa Maria Novella, just down the street from our apartment. It, too, is massive and ancient. I didn’t take as many photos there (I think I was tired!).

We came back to the apartment to pack up for the next stage of our adventure, which starts with a morning train to Milan. Tune in tomorrow to find out where we end up!

We decided to take our chances with the rain in Florence today, but we tried to improve our odds by bringing umbrellas and leaving my non-water-resistant camera in the apartment. And things started well – there wasn’t any rain on our walk to the other side of the Arno to visit Boboli Gardens and the Pitti Palace (brought to you by the Medicis, of course). Apple Maps suggested a different route than we’d taken before, so we got to see the other side of Santa Maria Novella Basilica and its piazza, as well as walking across Santa Trinita Bridge (which was destroyed by the Germans during WWII and rebuilt in 1958 “com’era e dove’era” (“how it was and where it was”)).

We decided to take advantage of the lack of rain and started our visit in Boboli Gardens (“An Open-Air Museum”, as the signs proclaim). The gardens extend over 30 hectares (74 acres) and there is a LOT of up and down if you want to see everything. We saw most of the major structures marked on the map, but there were miles of trails and hundreds of statues that we couldn’t get to before leaving for lunch.

We left the grounds and had a very nice lunch at La Casalinga (“The Housewife”), which we’d tried to visit on Tuesday (it’s mentioned in Rick Steves, so too many tourists like us know about it and we couldn’t get in that day).

Refreshed, we returned to tackle the main event – the Pitti Palace. We started, as one does, with the Palatine Gallery, which has 28 rooms (plus parts of the Royal Apartments), more than 500 paintings (mostly Renaissance), and very few labels.

We thought about leaving, but there were more sub-museums to visit: Costume and Design (where I took no photos) and Modern Art (which starts in the 18th Century).

There was one more sub-museum to visit, the Treasury of the Grand Dukes, but we’d reached our limit of amazing art for the day and made our escape.

The weather had improved while we were inside and we took a leisurely walk back to the apartment, with only a brief stop to admire the bronze pig in the Mercato del Porcellino.

We found tonight’s dinner restaurant through The Fork which has restaurant reviews, a booking service, and discounts. Our choice tonight was the Palazzo Castri 1874, which offered Tuscan cuisine and 50% off all food items! It was wonderful, and we left very happy (and with half a bottle of wine for tomorrow’s dinner). Visit the restaurant if you come to Florence; check out TheFork if you travel to Europe.