Today we broke out of the museum pattern and spent the day
wandering around town.  Our initial
destination was the produce (and meat, and fish, and grappa) market at San
Lorenzo.  It is a massive hall that
dwarfs the SF Ferry Plaza.  It is
always a wonderful thing to look at fresh produce and is even better when it’s a
just a bit different as it is here. 
Everything was gorgeous!  In
one shop we spoke to a very helpful young Florentine who hails originally from
Oregon.  She is in school here and
says the job market is way better than Oregon.  We made or way home zigzagging through town succeeding in
keeping most of our shopping to the window- variety.  We had a bit of rain today which blessedly dropped the temp
below 90.  It made walking about so
much more pleasant (there may be a short essay on the heat in a later post).

Dinner tonight was again wonderful.  Nice simple bruscheta with the ripest
melt in your mouth tomatoes you can imagine, an anchovy salad, and a slow
braised beef with peppercorns and various secret ingredients.   We’ve been asked if the meals are
expensive and the answer is yes, but only because everything in Florence is
expensive!  The prices we’ve paid
have been reasonable by Florence standards.  We’ve found most places through our guidebook and we’ve
limited ourselves to places that are a 1 or 2 on their 4 point scale.

Tomorrow we are off to Venice where we hear things are even
more expensive than Florence – we shall see!