Today we set off for a day trip to the city of Florence.  We took the fast train from Milan to Florence, a 189 mile trip that took only one hour and 40 minutes to complete.  We reached speeds of 180 miles an hour.  Sam and Ruby and Ruby’s mom Linda, met us at the train station and we were off.  We saw a giant bronze turtle which seemed a different sitting there with all of the renaissance statues, etc.  Some of us (there were only 2 left when we got there) were able to sample a sandwich billed as perhaps the world’s best chicken sandwich.  Ehhh!  It was good but not necessarily world best good though.  Clearly however, the highlight of the day was when we visited the museum where many of Michelangelo’s statues were housed.  The detail that Michelangelo was able to carve out of the block of marble was amazing.  His masterpiece, the David, was stunning.  Lifelike detail of muscles and tendons carved out of marble – Wow!

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It was a very long but wonderful day and we returned to Milan for a dinner at our hotel and then onto bed.  We have a four and a half hour cooking class scheduled for tomorrow evening at 6:00 pm.