Gypsies in the Palace

On Friday, we went to Florence -- Firenze -- the jewel of the renaissance. We started at the famous overlook, where we could see a panoramic view of the city.

We then proceeded to the Academy to view the statue of David. We toured the Duomo (cathedral) in Florence, which is the church with the famous red dome. The outside has been recently restored and is beautiful.

The inside, while nice, of course, was never the focus of this particular building; instead, it was built to be the largest church in Italy, and in that it succeeded. We also toured the most well known piazzas in Florence.

By the end of the tour, we were all pretty tired and glad it was time for lunch and free time. Peggy and I had margherita pizza and chicken salad at an outdoor cafe recommended by our tour guide, complete with wine and capuccino. We had a great time with our new friends, Mary Ann from Pahrump and Joyce from St Rose of Lima.

 

After lunch, we celebrated mass at Santa Croce Church (Church of the Holy Cross), a huge and beautiful church where many famous people are buried, including Michelangelo, Gallileo, Machiavelli, Marconi (the radio inventor), and Enrico Fermi, the nuclear physicist.

 

As we walked back to the bus after a full day in Florence, I was thinking that the beauty and holiness of our experiences could not be described adequately in this blog, and I was wondering what I could write about to make it interesting. Then -- problem solved -- as Peggy and I settled into our seats on the bus. Only moments later, Kathy Bush boarded the bus telling everyone to check their pockets. Now, this story comes to me second hand -- I didn't see what happened. Apparently Kathy and Keith Bush and Bob and Janet Gerbode were walking along in a crowd on their way to the bus when two gypsy girls approached Bob and started putting their hands on him. (The following is not a photo of the actual incident but a picture of how gypsy pickpockets operate.)

Kathy saw what was happening and yelled at the gypsies to get their hands off of Bob. The girls turned away, and Kathy told Bob to check his pockets. Sure enough, his wallet was gone, so he ran after the girls and confronted them, with Keith and Kathy bringing up the rear. The girls told him they found his wallet on the ground and asked him for a "reward" to get it back. What nerve! But, the happy ending is that Bob did get his wallet back. Later, we saw Bob in the bar buying wine for Keith and Kathy, who helped stop the robbery. Bob Jerbode was very, very lucky!

Tomorrow, we spend the morning in Siena, and then we're off for wine tasting before heading to Assisi.