Santa Croce

At this point in the day, I'd have whimpered back to our room, drawn a hot bath and taken a nap before dinner. But Vic wanted to see the Church of Santa Croce...and boy was it a treat!

One of the best parts of traveling with a friend is that you see places that you probably might not have...This is one of 'em.



That's Vic and Rob standing in what was once malaria-infested swampland and now the beautiful Piazza Santa Croce.


Santa Croce's cloisters...





Many of Italy's illustrious are buried here including Machiavelli, regarded as the founder of political science. There's also a funeral monument to Dante, Father of Italian Language, but his bones are elsewhere as he was exiled from Florence. Galileo is here and this is his monument - even though he was accused of heresy and forced to take back his theories about the motion of the earth and the planets.

Talk about a back-handed compliment to be buried here!