Palazzi di Firenze

Right after the Museo dell'Accademia we took the time to visit some of the Palazzi of Florence which were open for cultural week.

It was amazing to go into these places, which look so bland and anonymous from the outside, to find beautiful interiors and lush gardens inside.

We didn't make it to all the gardens we wanted to as, while we raced to make it through the gates just before closing time, we found them closing in our faces, which was very frustrating as we'd gone quite some distance out of our way! To make up for our disappointment we found a forno that made pastries so good we're now trying to figure out where exactly it was so we can go back and get some more.

Our own Palazzo was also open and, although it has a courtyard which is not quite as exciting as some of the gardens we saw, it was all cleaned up for the day and a little concert was put on for an appreciative audience (almost certainly entirely made up of friends and relatives).

Some of the children seemed less keen than others, sometimes ceasing singing completely while their adoring parents jostled each other to take footage the child would likely dread come 21st birthday time.

Since the Palazzo courtyard is all cleaned up, our hosts put on a dinner at this time every year and invite their friends and family. We were invited (we think) to come along and, after handing over our gift of wine (which immediately got put to the side), we stood around friendless for the majority of the evening pretending to at least be enjoying our own company. There was a couple of nice people who made an effort to talk with us, but it must have been dull conversation given our limited italian so I could completely understand when they gave up on us and returned to the main scrum of diners. At some point we made our apologies citing mythical exams the following day and retreated back to our apartment.