When we went for dinner last night, there were a number of people outside the restaurant drinking wine. We didn’t think too much of it until we were inside eating our dinner.

We discovered there is a window in the wall that opens into the restaurant. Every few minutes one of the servers would hear a knock on the window, bring a glass of wine, open the window, take their money and hand out the glass of wine. You can stand … or sit … on the sidewalk and enjoy your drink. If the weather was nicer, and Jan was feeling better, we would definitely try it. And don’t worry Stu – you can get beer too.

Yesterday Jan felt like a cold was coming on, but she woke up today feeling quite a bit better. The forecast was for rain and it was overcast, but no rain. Most of the museums are closed on Monday, so we decided to just wander the city. First stop was the Duomo, which is open on Monday and is free. Unfortunately the queue to get in stretched around the corner and down the block. We decided it could wait till a less busy time.

We were wandering down toward the Ponte Vecchio, and spotted an interesting building. We went to have a closer look.

It was open, and free, so we went it.

As often happens here, the buildings are as interesting as the art works they display.

And this one had some modern art works, as well as old masters. All around the inside, there were paintings and one sculpture. We learned that a local art class had been invited to create works commemorating the disastrous flood of the Arno in Florence in 1966. I looked it up when we got back to the hotel – it was the worst flood in the city since 1557. Here is one of the paintings that appealed to me, showing people cleaning up with water still running in the street.

There were also copies of various sculptures that were originally displayed in Florence. This next one is titled Samson Slaying a Philistine, commemorating the time Samson killed 1000 philistines with a donkey’s jawbone. You can see the original in the Victoria and Albert museum in London.

I’m not sure what it is with all these gruesome statues. This next one shows a lion with a person’s head in its mouth. Seriously?

Last night at dinner we tried ribollita, a traditional Tuscan soup, and loved it so much that we had it for lunch. It wasn’t quite as good as last night, but still hit the spot. Maybe we will need to search out the best ribollita on this trip, or perhaps on the next.

Unfortunately this afternoon the rain started, and Jan’s cold got worse, so it was a quiet afternoon. Hoping tomorrow will be dry and healthy.