We left the apartment early in the morning to make our way to Florence. We took the Metro to the Termini train station, then took the train to Florence. It was a short one and a half hour ride in a first class coach. On the trains, we could make reservations, but we could not select the exact seat. We were seated across from each other with two businessmen sharing the table with us. When we arrived in Florence, we caught a taxi to the hotel, and, even though it was 10:30 in the morning, our room was ready and we could check in and drop off our overnight bags.

We had two tours today arranged online in advance through Viator. The first one was to the Accademia with the Michelangelo statues. Our tour guide was an expat Brit with a sour, sarcastic manner. Now I know who the real shushers of the world are. They are not librarians, but tour guides in Italy. Our guide stopped to shush the other visitors several times when the noise level was above her liking. We were using a receiver and headphones so we had no problem hearing her, except when her microphone scrapped on her jacket making for some unpleasant static. One of the other tour visitors helped her rearrange her microphone, which helped.

The Accademia is a small gallery and our tour was only about one hour long. We visited the lesser known rooms after the guided part of the tour was over, went back for another look at David and the Prisoners, then went on to lunch. We ate lunch at Cafe Rivoire on the Piazza della Signoria, which is full of statues and copies of statues. A copy of David is the primary feature there, but quite a few other pieces are on display in the piazza as an outdoor room of the Uffizi Gallery.

At 4:30, we took a tour of the Uffizi with a different guide. However, he turned out to be a shusher, too. He said, "This is a museum. We are not in a bar," to explain his shushing. This guide was a good teacher, explaining why Giotto and Caravaggio are so important to the development of Western art. He pointed out and discussed only seven works during our one and a half hour tour, but he explained them thoroughly. After the tour, we viewed other works in the museum using our new knowledge to help us understand them, too.

We had dinner at the only fine dining restaurant we visited on the trip. We ate at the Borgo San Jacopo in the Hotel Lungarno with a view of the Arno river and the Ponte Vecchio. This is the first time I have seen a dog in a fine dining restaurant. During other trips to Europe we have seen dogs in restaurants and cafes, usually at outside tables, but not always. This Yorkie was out of place there. When the owner came in with her she stopped by another table to talk, and the dog barked at the person at that table. This dog was wearing a ridiculous looking pair of panties with ruffles across the bottom. Perhaps it is required that animals wear something when they are in the restaurant? I don't know. She did settle down and did not make any more noises when we were there. The food was very nice and the service was fine--a little slow for us, but normal in Europe. It's too bad that the most memorable thing was the dog.