First, we took every last shred of photocopied Frommer's material and ceremonially slammed it into the garbage. This was the last straw: first Frankfurt, then Salzburg, and now this...never again would we trust anything he had to say! Then we begrudgingly paid our bill downstairs and said we would not be staying any more nights. Lastly, we walked down the `corner' phone (after about 8 or 9 corners that didn't have any) and started calling the places in RS's book. Though he had about two dozen listings and we constantly mentioned that we were using his book[26], we couldn't come up with anything! The closest we got was the first one that said, "Maybe we will, call back later" and the last one that said "Yes, we have something open...blah blah...oh wait, you mean tonight?" Totally exasperated, we even tried a place or two in Siena, a nearby town, but after they answered "no" to "Parla Inglesa," we were stuck. Eating our `breakfast' in a cafe that consisted of $4 candy bars and coke, I suggested we just go show up at the one place that said "maybe later", and perhaps looking pathetic with all our luggage, they might give us a small corner in which to curl up and sleep that night.

Florence's beautiful Ponte Vecchio--too pretty for even a Nazi commander under orders to blow up!

As we first limped in the door of the Hotel La Scaletta, my eyes surveyed for contact with our potential savior. A stout woman with reddish hair and a friendly smile caught them first, and, suspecting that she was the one who spoke English to us on the phone, I said to her: "We called you earlier about a room. Please tell me you have an opening." She pointed at the two people she was attending to and replied, "These two have just now decided to check out." Talk about timing! "Bless you!" I said to the two Americans there, and I gave them both a hug. They all found this rather amusing. We then handed our passports to the woman so she could check us in, when suddenly she gasped and engulfed us in her arms. "You Barbieri? I Barbieri!" And she showed us her business card: M. Barbara Barbieri. How do you like that? We were definitely home! Oh, and about two minutes later the phone rang, and she had to tell them that she had no rooms available. I guess it had been meant for us!

After that American couple articulated to us how much we would love our room, we chatted on with M. Barbieri about our family name. I also noticed that she was selling a few Rick Steves books[27], so we knew this place would be pretty cool. Since the room would not be ready for a while, though, we weren't able to settle in right away, but they agreed to watch our bags for us while we killed a little time. Not hard to do in art-drenched Florence! So we dumped the bags and headed straight for the Accademia, where Michelangelo's David hangs his hat[28]. Even though it was the furthest sight from the hotel, we wanted to get to the best sight in Florence before the crowds did, if that was remotely possible.

Doug and David (respectively)

Though David was definitely king of that museum, there were also many interesting carvings and oils somewhat neglected in adjoining hallways. There was one particularly lucid and lifelike painting of Moses and the Pharaoh that fascinated us--even in the 16th century Moses looked exactly like Charlton Heston! And all the female nudes in simple yet incredibly seductive poses looked nothing like the sex symbols of today--they had wide hips, normal-sized breasts, and even little `ponch' stomachs. Boy, was I born in the wrong century!

After we walked out of the Accademia, I noticed that there was an Italian man with a cart selling David memorabilia. After looking through cool posters (Darn! How would I get that home?!) and cheesy statues (Why would I want to take it home?), I narrowed it down to the prettiest David postcard I could find for Doug's sister. I paid the man, and then accidentally said "Danke" because of all our time in German-speaking countries. I looked embarrassed and stuttered "Uh, I mean `Grazie'!", but he merely smiled and said "Ehhh..." as he gestured with his right hand. How Italian.

After that Renaissance adventure, we were ready for a 20th-century equivalent, so we headed for the `Super Mercato'. No, I'm not kidding, because food shopping in Italy was definitely an art form! In one warehouse-sized building there were a multitude of different booths, much like a swap meet, all with biting aromas (or stenches, depending) and a multitude of bustling people. Speaking no Italian save for `Grazie,' `Scusi,' `Per favore,' `Arrivederci,' and numbers 1-5, ordering our lunch with the rest of the locals was a definite challenge. When we finally found a deli-type counter, we had waited around for quite a while until we realized that we would have to be brave and insistent if we wanted anybody to actually serve us. We pointed to two different types of meat and said `mille', hoping that we'd get 100 grams[34] and not a million. We thought about ordering some cheese, but I said quietly to myself "that would be too hard!" Some lady overheard and smiled at me for that. Content enough with our order, we went to two other booths: in one we got a bottle of coke and a bottle of wine for the same price, and in the other we found bread. When I noticed that one woman was ordering two slices, I pointed to her and held four fingers up...you get pretty creative with language when you have to. That was a moot point, though, because we found out that this Italian had once lived in Canada and thus spoke wonderful English. Doug stood there and talked to him for a long time after that.

With our lunch fixings in hand, we went back to our hotel and checked into our room. What a wonderful place to stay! Down two floors in the `labyrinth' floor plan, we had a huge, quaint suite with a private bath and shower (a real one!), phone, candy on our pillows, and a door that went out into a Old World Lounge that we had all to ourselves. We assembled our lunch on real tables and sat on real chairs, and M. Barbieri was nice enough to give us real ice and real glasses to drink from (even though we didn't order anything through her...how nice). We sat gazing out the window, enjoying our peaceful lunch in our haven away from the tourists bustling outside. The only problem was that I felt too nauseated to eat that meat we worked so hard to order. Oh well.

After our `Siesta II', we dared to head back out for the remainder our `Renaissance walk'. See, we had brought several photocopied chapters from RS's other book, Mona Winks, with us, and we were very glad that we did. Many interesting facts and a deeper understanding of history filled those pages, and it made it possible to keep us from getting `cathedraled-' or `museumed-' out. For example, we were able to learn a lot about the formation of Florence's most famous landmark, the Duomo, and saved time by not going inside...mostly because Rick himself said it wasn't worth it and, well, it was closed after 2 pm anyway.

The Museum dell' Opera del Duomo however wasn't closed, and though it had nothing to do with Opera, it did have the wood model of Brunneleschi's famous Dome. Also for the bargain $5 admission there were displayed the original baptistery doors, a Michelangelo `Pieta', incredible choir lofts, and numerous other pieces of fantastic sculpture[35]. Our favorite piece at that museum was a particular sculpture by Raphael where Abraham is about to sacrifice his son at God's will. Rapheal had (subconsciously?) embodied the `dual face' philosophy, in which case the right side of his face gave his outward façe;ade (determination: "Yes, God, I will obey!") and the left side of his face his inward emotions (desperation: "Please, God, don't make me do this!"). It was truly amazing. Even his son had conflicting emotions chiseled on his face (right had resignation: "I will do as you will", but the left had terror: "I don't want to die!"). We asked the nearby guards questions about these statues[36] in our simplest English, and showed them our discovery of Rapheal's incredible accomplishment. It was pretty funny, because as we walked into the different rooms, we noticed that those two guards were still gathered around the statue, covering up one part of the face at a time, contemplating it, and then pointing it out to any interested passers-by. I guess we should be art critics.

We then continued on our Renaissance walk outside, to the grain church with more incredible statues[37], to the best Gelato place on earth[38]...all the way to the Uffizi Gallery. Even though we had already been to two other art museums and a host of other buildings that day, both Doug and I really enjoyed our self-made tour of the finest art museum next to the Louvre. With marvelous educational information from Mona Winks[39], we took turns reading aloud excerpts about a variety of key paintings: "See, how they were starting to get perspective down, but didn't quite make it. Look there, is that a 40 foot rabbit?!?" Boy, we got attention from any English-speaker in ear-shot. "Where did you get that brochure!?" they demanded. "I (blowing on my fingernails and rubbing them on my shirt) brought it with me!" I could answer gloatfully. There was only one problem with our enlightening museum tour...right when we got to the best stuff at the end (Rapheal, Donatello, and the only easel painting in existence by Michelangelo) the museum guards closed off those rooms without any warning and shooed us all out a half-hour early! Boy was I furious!! Ten more minutes would have been enough, but who could you complain to? Well, it definitely was worth the $8/each, but we knew that we couldn't afford the admission the next day for only 3 or 4 more key paintings. What a bummer!! At least we got to see the sculptures not by...but of all the greats outside before it got dark: Michelangelo, Amerigo Vespucci, Dante, Lorenzo de Medici, Galileo, etc.

For dinner we first thought about going to one of the nice places M. Barbieri recommended, but seeing that we were about 200% overbudget for the day already, decided against it. But when we went down a hidden street, looking for where she said she thought a `Barbieri'[40] was, we discovered what looked like fast-food, Italian style. Cheap and a cultural experience, we picked up a pizza, a hamburger, and a side order of spaghetti[41], all for about $7 total, and brought it back to our hotel. Though our hostess thought that we were wasting our money at `Kenny's Pizza', she let us take it up to the roof garden to eat for a wonderful view! We could see the whole city by moonlight in that enchanting roof garden--hard to believe we got all this for the same price as the `boombox' hellhole! As Doug drank the rest of his Italian wine (I had Coke), we spoke with another family staying in the hotel who ironically lived in Davis, CA for a time. Though our view was vast, it certainly was turning out to be a small world!