The group dinner the first night in Florence was wonderful, and one of my favorite group meals. After our orientation walk in the historic district and a visit to the Duomo Museum, we dined at the Ristorante Giglio Rosso. The restaurant has a very elegant Italian feel to it with a friendly and efficient wait staff.

Dinner was a very relaxing and leisurely affair. We shared a table with Suzie, Linda, Lori, and Elizabeth and had plenty of time to get to know them better. Lori joined the tour in Florence so this was the first opportunity we had to talk with her. She had inadvertently misplaced her passport and had a real challenge to get it back in time to join the group.

We started the dinner with the first course or Primo Piatto, which consisted of Raviolis, Gnocchi, and Penne covered in a marinara sauce and served with red wine and wonderful Tuscan bread. The pastas were fantastic and so tender that they melted in your mouth. Steak Florentine was the main course or Secondo Piatto. It was cooked to perfection, and accompanied by cubed potatoes with Rosemary. The dessert cart offered a choice from among seven items. Brian and I both chose the chocolate-covered cream-filled pastry.

The entire meal was excellent, but the dessert was heavenly and the serving sizes where huge. We were very full. I thanked the owner for the wonderful meal before leaving and received a warm hug from him. We left the restaurant feeling very content and satisfied as we waddled back to the hotel. Can life get any better than this?

The church that was the biggest surprise to me was the Basilica of San Lorenzo located near our hotel and the Central Market. From the outside it is very ordinary and the unfinished front facade is just rough brick, but the inside is a very different story. It was the first church built in the renaissance style of architecture, and the proportions of the interior give the building a very pleasing balance and symmetry. It has a very serene feeling with everything in grays and whites. The elegant effect is spoiled a little by the very colorful baroque paintings on the interior of the dome. Still, it is very calming just to sit for a little while and take in the genius of Brunelleschi.

San Lorenzo was the parish church of the Medici family, and several of the Medici’s are buried there. Cosimo the Elder is buried beneath the floor of the nave just in front of the altar, and his two sons are buried nearby in the old sacristy. Adjoining the church on its west end is the Medici chapel, which is basically a Medici mausoleum. The chapel is famous for Michelangelo’s allegorical sculptures of Dawn and Dusk, as well as, Day and Night that decorate two Medici tombs. San Lorenzo is a showcase for the wealth and power of the Medici family during the 15th and 16th centuries.