We woke up bright and early - bright because the lightening coming in to our apartment was quite spectacular, and early because the storm hit really early. I raced downstairs to make coffee just in case there was an electricity failure, then we opened all the shutters and watched the storm go past. The rain was so heavy that Garth had water over his ankles unblocking the drain on the terrace to stop the apartment getting well and truly flooded! I was a tad worried about lightening while he was standing in water, but thankfully all went well and he is still with us!

After making the most of the rain to do some domestic chores, we headed out to the Pitti Palace and the Galleria Palatina . The Palace is one of the largest buildings in Florence, but the rooms are quite small and heavily decorated (reminding us of a smaller version of the Versailles Palace). The palace was built in 1457 for Luca Pitti who was a Medici Rival. However, he ran out of cash and ended up selling it to the Medici, and Cosmo and his wife moved into the Palace in 1549. It was extended twice in the 17th and 18th Centuries because it was too small! It now holds the Medici collection of art works, and has a number of museums throughout the building.

The Galleria Palletina has 28 rooms of paintings, five rooms named after planets (Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) with paintings from floor to ceiling, as well as damask wallpaper in some of the rooms, and frescoed ceilings. You can also visit some of the apartment rooms, including a bedroom, chapel, drawing rooms etc.

There are some fabulous paintings by Tiziano (aka Titian), Ruebens, Raffaello, Filippo Lipi, Van Dyck, Bottecelli and other Renaissance painters. There are so many paintings in a small space, that you get a bit cavalier about them. For some reason we were swamped by huge Russian tour groups, which made life a little difficult as they managed to push in front every time I tried to take a photo! Boo hoo! Lots of cropping required before loading these photos!