Florence or Firence

What a beautiful city and countryside.  We left Rome on Tuesday morning for Florence.  It was a beautiful drive despite the fact that I slept though part of it.  The Italian landscape is different than the France land scape as it has many hills, vineyards. cypress trees and farms.  In France you saw fields, a few cows and rolling hills.
we stayed at the Hotel Mediterraeo.  This was a big hotel and many tour groups besides Globus us it for their tours.  Our room was small but had a big bath tub.  We were able to get CNN and BBC on TV.
We were only in florence an afternoon, evening and morning.
The afternoon our tour director set those who were interested in a tour to the Uniffici Art museum.  this is probaly the most important art museum in Italy.  It is housed in the palace of the Medici family.  The Medici Family ruled Florence for 300 years and were very wealthy.  They were patrons of the Arts and purchased and comissioned many works of art from the Masters of the late middle ages into the Renaisance period.  The two most famous painting in the museum is the Botticello's  Venus rising and Rites of Spring.  Before you view these paintings the pre rooms contained religious icons, paintings and sculptures that lead up to the Master's work such as Botticello, DaVinci, Michaelangelo,Titian, and corregvagio.  We had a guide who explained many the painting,  she explained the progression of the art work, the stories behind some of the paintings and compared painters.
After the visit to this museum we went to hotel and got dressed for a drive in Tuscany countryside and a typical Tuscany dinner.  We first drove to a plaza above the city for a great view.  Then we drove on to the restaurant.  At the restaurant we had a buffet of different veg dishs,  two pasta courses,  a slice of prime rib and sausage and tarimasue for dessert.  There was a combo who sang and played an accordian, italian songs.
The next day we met with our Florence guide, Flabia, who showed us the Michaelangleo David.  This is Michaeangelo's most famous and best work of sculpture.  It stands 8 feet high and it took him 3 years to complete.  It was considered an masterpiece almost as soon as it was unveiled.
We took a walk past the most famous church in florence that has a Dummo roof.  The name of the church is the Church of the flower.
 We left Florence when it was raining.  It had been clear the day before but it rained as we were getting ready to leave.  Our next stop is Venice.