Florence and Ferrara

In addition to Verona, Modena and Ravenna, we took two other day trips during our stay in Italy - Florence and Ferrara. In Ferrara, we visited a new museum that is dedicated to the history of the Jews in Italy. There, in addition to learning interesting things about Jews in Italy (going all the way back to the destruction of the Second Temple and the spread of Jews through the Roman Empire), we also learned that the best place to avoid tourists in Italy is at sites dedicated to Jewish history - we spent over an hour in the museum and saw only museum employees there.

We also had a chance to test this theory in Florence, where we visited the Great Synagogue. While there were more tourists there than at the museum in Ferrara, considering how packed the rest of Florence was, attendance was definitely sparse. The Synagogue, which is Sephardic, is gorgeous:

We very much enjoyed seeing the Synagogue and its small museum, which told about the history of Jews in Florence (a theme).

As for the rest of Florence, we had the opportunity to climb up both the Campanile and the dome of the Duomo for fantastic views:

The Mosaics in the Baptistry were quite impressive (although, no more so than those we saw in Ravenna):

But, overall, we were not enthralled by Florence, which was surprising to me because Florence was one of my favorite cities when I traveled in Europe after graduating college. Maybe it was the extreme level of tourism - definitely the craziest we have seen in all of our travels in Europe - or maybe it was that my memories gave me high expectations. We did have a nice lunch there, but even that was no better than many of the meals we enjoyed in Bologna, and at about 20-25% more in cost. All-in-all, we were glad that we only spent one day in Florence.

Ciao,

Jeff and Shana