Florence, Italy

When on a tour such as this, it is useful to have a guide or a detailed guidebook to point out some of the interesting points about some of the sculptures such as the secondary face sculpted into the back of Benvenuto Cellini’s “Perseus with the Head of Medusa”.

I’m not sure how far a Florence carriage ride would take you but they were often seen in the larger squares waiting for customers.

Having visited with the pigeons, and horses and statues of the Piazza della Signoria, we headed over to the Piazza di Santa Croce to get our bearings, discuss options and then do a bit of shopping at the local Peruzzi leather outlet.

I cannot tell a lie. The Pinocchio statue certainly got my attention as we passed by a delightful little shop. The Adventures of Pinocchio was originally written in the early 19th century by Italian author Carlo Collodi and was written in Florence.

The Basilica di Santa Croce (Basilica of the Holy Cross) is the largest Franciscan church in the world and is the final resting place for many important figures such as Michelangelo and Galileo.