Palace of the Medici and Returning to Rome (July 23rd)

For our final day in Florence, we would visit the Palace of the Medici and Santa Croce Cathedral. Kaleb opted out of these activities and waited in the train station; it was just us four. We got a rather late start to the day, checking out of the hostel around 11:30 a.m. It was our final bus ride down the mountain and back to "home base", the train station bus stop. From here, everything in Florence was no more than a 15 minutes walk. We headed off towards the Palace of the Medici and waited in a short line before purchasing tickets. The Medici was the richest family in Italy, and rather ostentatious if I do say so myself. The palace was beautiful, but Versailles is still my favorite palace that we have visited to date. We toured the palace for an hour or so before making our way out into the dreary skies; rain was coming.

The final church that we would be visiting is called Santa Croce. This is the cathedral in which Michelangelo, Galileo, and Donatello are buried. Unfortunately, and not to our surprise, the cathedral was under construction. The altar was covered in scaffolding which was disappointing; however, the graves were fully visible. The church connects to a secret leather market where we got to see the work stations of leather makers and more high quality leather. No more prizes, though.

For a rather late lunch, we had pasta in a small restaurant. I had the pasta carbonara and it was delicious, and for a rather good price. For dessert, on our way to the train station, I stopped and splurged on a Nutella covered waffle. Good decision. My goodness that was good. Around 4:00 p.m we met Kaleb in the train station and waited patiently for our train to come. Just eight minutes before departure, we saw the "bin" number flash on the board and made our way to our high speed train home.