Today I spent the entire time looking up - I have become ever so slightly obsessed with the very quirky road signs! Thanks to Danielle, I now know that they are not government sponsored, but instead belong to a graffiti artist, called Clet, who is obviously incredibly talented. We actually found a tiny shop about 6 doors down from where we are staying that showcases the signs - so some of the photos attached to this blog are from the shop, not from real locations. Clet has apparently been fined numerous times for 'defacing' the street signs, but he thankfully continues his art.

We went back to the San Marco monastery/museum today, but it was closed because of storm damage from last week (probably something to do with that huge tree snapped in half above its roof?) so we went into the small church next to the museum instead . There are a couple of nice statues of the famous Dominician father and painter, Fra Angelico (who did the paintings in each of the cells in the San Marco monastery) and also a most bizarre open tomb (thankfully behind glass) showing the mummified remains of xxxx. There is also a statue of Savonarola who was the Dominican priest who headed Florence after the Medici's were kicked out. He instituted a regime of strict religious austerity on the citizens of Florence (including the well known 'bonfire of the vanities' where books and paintings were burnt). The citizens eventually rebelled, and Savonarola was arrested, tortured and hanged in the Piazza Della Signoria.

After visiting the church, we then ducked down every side street we could find to escape the hoards of tourists, and enjoyed the beautiful buildings, stone tower houses, arches, incredibly expensive haute couture shops.... The small streets are always beautifully cool, so wandering around in them in the heat of the day is very enjoyable . When we then hit the sunny spots (eg the bridges) which are around ten degrees warmer, it always comes as a bit of a shock!

We took a few photos of the area around our apartment so that we don't forget the little shops and restaurants. There is a tiny green grocers that we call the 'fagioli shop' (bean shop) because the first two times we visited, there was a tiny little dog painstakingly sorting through the basket of beans with his nose until he found one he liked, then he proceeded to carefully extricate this one bean and chew it up! Even Garth thought it was cute, and we all know what Garth would like to do with dogs!!!

I also decided to take some photos of the little cars that zoom around everywhere. Also so cute!

Finally, Garth was taken by a 1950 'diner', complete with Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley. Apparently 1950 was a very good year (I think it's just makes you OLD!!).