7- Grand bicycle tour in Italy from 2011 (Firenze)

Now It's time for me to catch a glimpse of the Uffizi Gallery, a real treat for my inquisitive soul! La Nascita di Venere - Sandro Botticelli

Lorenzo de Medici -1 January 1449 – 8 April 1492) was an Italian statesman, de facto ruler of the Florentine Republic and the most powerful and enthusiastic patron of Renaissance culture in Italy. Also known as Lorenzo the Magnificent (Lorenzo il Magnifico by contemporary Florentines, he was a magnate, diplomat, politician and patron of scholars, artists, and poets. As a patron, he is best known for his sponsorship of artists such as Botticelli and Michelangelo.

Portrait de Dante Aligheri - Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist. Author of Divina Comedia, masterpice of universal litterature. Renaissance begins with this illustrious artist.

Portrait of Amerigo Vespucci - an Italian-born merchant, explorer, and navigator from the Republic of Florence, from whose name the term "America" is derived.

Niccolo Machiavelli's porttrait - was an Italian Renaissance diplomat, philosopher and writer, best known for The Prince (Il Principe), written in 1513 He has often been called the father of modern political philosophy and political science.

Decameron - is a collection of novellas by the 14th-century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375). The book is structured as a frame story containing 100 tales told by a group of seven young women and three young men; they shelter in a secluded villa just outside Florence in order to escape the Black Death, which was afflicting the city. Boccaccio probably conceived of The Decameron after the epidemic of 1348, and completed it by 1353. The various tales of love in The Decameron range from the erotic to the tragic. Tales of wit, practical jokes, and life lessons contribute to the mosaic. In addition to its literary value and widespread influence (for example on Chaucer's Canterbury Tales), it provides a document of life at the time. Written in the vernacular of the Florentine language, it is considered a masterpiece of classical early Italian prose.

Some other masterpieces.

Impressive museum indeed!

And an old bas-relief.

Some adorned colonades.

An old map of Florence from its golden time!

The unique Ponte Vecchio - what a fameous medieval bridge across Arno River.

Before I leave FLORENCE, I catch a glmpse of Brunelleschi dome at Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral, one of the best in the whole world.

I stop to admire another two churches before I leave this marvelous town.

It's time for me to ride on SS67 following the Arno river on my way to Florence. I am crossing such a nice area full of rolling hills with little villages perched on top of them.

I stop at a supermarket in Empoli and I buy a lot of food.

In the evening I drink something at a pub at Navacchio, I talk to a lady and I befriend her cute dog. Then I will sleep in the area in my sleeping bag.