Moving on in the morning

It's after midnight here in Florence, I am having some bad intestinal issues (no worries; they'll pass, so to speak), and in the morning I must find my way to Barcelona, so I'm going to keep this very short.

Rain fell all day today, but that didn't stop me from walking around the city, spending many hours in the Palazzo Vecchio, and, of course, grabbing some Grom gelato.

Now, though, it's time to pack and crash.

Tomorrow, Spain!

A short, slow, and easy day in Florence

Though it pains me to admit it, I so desperately needed sleep that I slept from about 1:30 a.m. local time to nearly three in the afternoon.  I did not awaken feeling fully healed, but I was definitely a great deal better for the rest.

I decided to devote the rest of the short day to re-introducing myself to some of my favorite parts of Florence.  I wandered my way over to the Loggia Della Signoria, which features some lovely old statues

Click an image to see a larger version.

and a great view onto the square at the front of the Palazzo Vecchio.

I wandered from there down the courtyard between the halves of the Uffizi, along the Arno, and back into the city on the street oppositve the Ponte Vecchio.  I eventually wound my way to the Duomo, because, well, the Duomo.

While eating a bruschetta snack at a little place well behind the Duomo, I ended up in conversation with a woman from NC who was on a very long trip.  She elected to join the expedition to Grom, where I very much enjoyed a medio cup with salted caramel and orange.  Wow, is Grom's gelato good!

After rest, email, and writing, dinner was at a local place, The Cat and the Fox, that has always treated me well.

In addition to a just-right set of beverages,

I enjoyed an okay Caesar salad and a very tasty bowl of spaghetti carbonara.

Some reading and then a lot of sleep are ahead.

A gentle and good first day in Florence.

The search for Grom

Grom is a gelato shop, one of a small chain with members in several cities, that Sarah declared to be the best in Florence.  Coming from a woman who knows her gelato as well as my daughter does, this was high praise indeed, so I clearly had to try it.  Monday night, in a mild rain and after visiting the Palazzo Vecchio and walking around a bit, I set out to find it.  I knew from Sarah that it was on a small side street very near the Duomo, and I'd seen its icon on Google Maps--in the room, where I have bandwidth.  I knew the name of its street, Via della Oche.  On the street, with no data plan, my phone is a voice-and-text-only device, so I would have no navigation aid.  Still, with all this information, how hard could it be to find?

Ah, if only I could get paid for all the misadventures I've begun with that sort of reasoning. 

The first mistake I made was to try a new route toward the Duomo.  Quite a walk later, I realized that I recognized absolutely nothing.  The streets were wider than I expected, which meant I had strayed rather far from the city's center.  No landmark tower was visible. 

Quite another walk later, I caught sight of a Duomo tower and wound a path toward it.  After a while, a street dumped into the back of the Duomo.  Success!

Or not.

You see, at this point, I misremembered what Sarah said and became convinced that Grom was directly in front of the Duomo.  I could have checked her words on my phone, where I'd stored the document, but at this point I was sure I had this one detail right.  Silly me. 

One rainy, long, slow circumnavigation of the Duomo later, I could not spot Grom. 

Frustrated and dejected, I set off to the hotel along the most familiar, safe path I know; at that point, I no longer trusted my navigation skills.

Almost immediately, I saw a sign for Via della Oche!  I turned left onto it, walked a bit, and encountered this scene. 

Click on the image to see a larger version.

The construction had made the place almost impossible to get to, and yet it was full. 

Sarah was right:  the gelato was fantastic and worth the walk.  It's been worth the walk--a more direct walk, to be sure--each day since then.