Day 15 (a.m. in Florence and p.m. in Rome)

We started in the morning at 8am. A local tour guide was assigned to us to take us for a walking tour around the city of Florence.

We started with the Accademia museum where the famous statue of David by Michelangelo stood. There were many pieces of unfinished work by Michelangelo and they were called the "Prisoners of art".

Michelangelo was indeed arguably the best marble sculptor in his times. To perfect his work, he went to great lengths by studying body anatomy and even analysing corpses, so that he could chisel the veins and muscles to their slightest details. The statue showed the concentration on David's face when he faced Goliath and the tension as he grabbed the stone in his fist. The guide was excellent as she showed us from different angles and perspectives of the statue so that we could better appreciate it. According to the guide, Michelangelo didn't believe in making plaster prior to working on the marble because his (weird) belief was that a ready sculpture already existed within the piece of marble; he just needed to carve them out. Very eccentric mentality and typical trait of someone of perfectionism.

Next, we walked past the third largest church in the world, Duomo, and saw its beautiful dome. We then continued to Santa Croce church. It was plain looking but it was the place where Michelangelo and famous mathematician, Galileo, were buried, along with some other great names.

We had some time before catching up with the rest. So, we went to eat the best gelato in Florence (recommended by the guide). It was heavenly!!!

We continued our journey and stopped by near Chiusi for lunch. Then, it was another two and half hours drive. Finally, we arrived at Rome and checked in at our hotel, Villa Pamphili Hotel, at around 4pm plus.

At around 6pm, we met with the rest of our tour mates. We drove to this wonderful place for dinner, called the Hostaria AL Gladiatore. Dinner was sumptuous and there was accompaniment of "live" and indigenous Italian music; made the whole dinner experience a truly memorable one.

We came back at about 9pm plus. Around 10pm, we retired for the night.