"So kids, tell me what impressed you most about Michelangelo's David. And please, don't say his bum or his penis." I could see their brains recalibrating their responses as we waited for our meals to arrive after an eventful day in Florence and now on the outskirts of Cinque Terre. "I liked his eyes," says Mira. "I liked the veins in is hands," says Shannon. OK, not bad, I think. They were paying attention afterall. "And his nipples were really detailed," adds Shannon. "You didn't say we couldn't talk about that."
We started our day with a visit to the Galileo Museum in Florence. On the half hour walk to the museum along the banks of the Arno we discussed Dante, whose tomb we'd visited in the Basilica di Santa Croce the evening prior. Outside the church was a display of modern sculptures depicting Dante's Nine Circles of Hell. We were discussing how hell is probably a make believe place and that the images that most people in the Christian world conjure up when thinking about it are usually those created in The Inferno. Much the same as many of our modern notions of Christmas are those manufactured by Dickens. But hell is in the eye of the beholder. My idea of hell, at least when there are no shopping malls or factory outlets around, is having only an hour and a half to breeze through a fabulous museum of modern observational science before having to run off to a guided walking tour. I could have spent days in there. The museum actually has very little to do with Galileo, although three of his fingers and a tooth are on display. Most of the real estate is taken up by stunningly beautiful instruments that were designed and crafted hundreds of years ago to observe, query, measure and test the natural world around us. I whimpered as I rushed past the earliest and most intricately designed telescopes, thermometers, astrolabes, globes, calipers, glass tubes, anatomical birthing models and electromagnetic doodads. We take all these discoveries for granted in the modern age. But to see the effort and ingenuity that went into testing and retesting the hunches of these early renaissance men was very humbling. I'd come back to Florence simply to spend an unhurried morning or afternoon basking in the glow of the brass, glass and polished wood of these early scientific masterpieces. Teach one grade 11 physics class in this place and you'd never have a kid say science is boring again. OK, you might get a few but you get my point.
Right. We then spent an hour or so looking at the David from all angles and another two strolling around the outside of Florence's major sites including the Duomo, the Palazzo di Vecchio, the Uffizi Gallery and the Ponte Vecchio. Our experiences with guided tours have not, on the whole, been great. But even though we suddenly found ourselves on the receiving end of smug looks from other independent travelers as we followed our flag bearing guide around like so many sheep, listening to her every word in our earpieces, our eyes were opened to so much sub text about this amazing city and its far reaching influence on history, art and science. The David, like the Taj Mahal, is one of those things that must be seen with ones own eyes to appreciate. Despite having gazed upon photos and exact replicas the night before in Florence and a few times at Caesars Palace in Vegas, the site of the master's chisel marks on the perfect figure he released from inside a massive block of marble over 400 years ago was an unforgettable experience. Everyone around us had the same, silent look of awe and wonder on their faces as they gazed up at his confident yet foreboding expression - at his tense leg muscles right on the edge of movement towards the approaching giant. Yes, even our uncultured ankle biters from the back woods of Canada were suitably impressed with one of the world's greatest works of art.
We arrived in La Spezia yesterday evening and woke early today to get a jump on the crowds we expected to meet on the trails between the villages of Cinque Terre. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the national park that includes the five seaside villages on the cliffs of the Italian Riviera is truly something. Although many of the hiking trails were not yet open for the season, the villages are all connected by fast trains that run every half hour or so. We started off by hiking one of the open trails between the villages of Monterosso and Vernazza. The weather was a bit gloomy at first but soon brightened up to treat us to superb views of the magnificently blue Mediterranean Sea and the colourful villages themselves. We suntanned and enjoyed a picnic lunch of focaccia and salad in Vernazza before hopping on the train to Corniglia for the Park's "best gelato." "I'll never be able to go back to the Brown Reddy Mart for ice cream again," complained Mira. Likely story. After a quick stop to look around Manarola, we headed for Riomaggiore for a late dinner before catching the last train back to La Spezia for the night.
The crowds were not as bad as we'd expected, likely owing to the closed trails and time of year. At times there were lineups to get through bottlenecks on the trail and we did have to stand for one train ride. All and all it was a very pleasant day for a walk on the seashore. I'd love to come back and walk the entire trail and linger a little longer in the quant, carless villages. Alas, tomorrow we leave Italy to make our way ever westward to Nice, France. If the trains are running that is. Word is there will be a nation-wide, one day rail strike tomorrow. Oh well, there's nowhere we need to be for a week or so and far worse places to be stranded. Besides, I still haven't had a Kardashian sighting. I wonder how Michelangelo would have carved the veins in HER hands?

P.S. Despite the Italian Train Strike, we managed to get ourselves on a train heading to Milan and hopped off at Genoa. Right now we are on a train headed for the french border at Ventimiglia. The deep blue waters of the Côte d'Azur are drifting by the windows on the left side of the train as it approaches the French Riveria. We need to get to our hotel in Nice before 7pm when the reception closes. I'll need a cognac by then! Bonjourno Italia. Bonjour la France!