Tour of Florence

We just got back to our apartment after a wonderful tour of Florence. It was a tour for families so it was really geared towards kids which was nice. It was us and 2 other families. There were 5 kids and they all worked together to find things through out the city. We discovered wine holes, which were tiny doors in the side of houses where, long ago you could knock on the door and buy wine. The tour guide said it was because it was very dangerous to let drunk people inside back then. We also saw the home of Michelangelo and where Mona Lisa lived which was where her famous portrait was painted. We learned about the Medici family and how Cosimo Medici married a Spanish

princess who was seriously high maintenance. She didn't want to walk around with the common people so he built a sky bridge from their palace to the square where all the government business happened. It went across the Ponte Vecchio. In those days all the shops on the bridge were butcher shops. The princess didn't wasn't to smell the gross smells coming from the shops so Medici made the butchers move and had jewelers inhabit the shops. They are still there today. We also went into a church that was also a grain depository. You could go in, ring a bell and they would send the grain down a chute.
After the tour we went to the Mercato Centrale for lunch. It's a huge market where you can shop for food or buy food from one of the many restaurants there. I was far too tired and hungry to take any pictures. We will for sure go back so I will take pictures and write more about it later.