If it's Monday, this must be Florence

Well, here I am...all alone (with Dick of course) at the villa while everyone else is roaming around Italy. Ron, Pam, Sally, Dick and I piled into our VW Golf yesterday and took a little trip to Florence. A wonderful time was had by all....Pam and I dropped coins (bought jewelry) on the Ponte Vecchio...Sally and Pam bought lamps at a wonderful lamp store...pics of those to come later. So, here's a little preview of our day!

Ron & Pam perusing the leather goods at the market:

The girls posing at the top of the Duomo...you can't send us marathon runners to Italy and not expect us to climb every staircase there is!!!

Oops, sneaked a pic of the villa in here. Here's our awesome kitchen fireplace. The villa is indescribable...it's huge...we could have easily tucked 6 more people into our suitcases and it is beautifully kept.

The Duomo

The relative hardships of WWI helped bring Mussolini to prominence, and Florence became a violent fascist stronhold between the wars. The city was badly damaged by the retreating German forces in WWI and the Ponte Vecchio (shown below) was the only bridge spared.