Secret Passages, an Overdose of Religious Iconography and the Italian Love of Cheesy Music........

Good morning Fellow Conspirators,

Back to Palazzo Vecchio this morning to have a guided tour of the secret passages of the Palazzo del Veccio. Not content with occupying the biggest pile in town, Comissimo and his heir Francesco, also ensure that their lifelong commitment to the collection of priceless artifacts is safe from the great unwashed, by the creation of secret chambers called Rooms of Curiosities and Rooms of Treasure wherein these precious works of art could be stored and viewed by a privileged few. These secret chambers and passageways are littered throughout the palazzo and they enable secret trysts, spying and eavesdropping to occur with ease and made dispatching of your enemies, or your no-longer desired paramour, easy to ditch!

One room is the map room which contained framed hand painted maps of all known countries of the world at this time. - needless to say, no Australia. These walls of maps conceal hidden storage and secret passage ways to make quick getaways if a you don't wish to chat to boring old political and business rival Guiseppe Strozzi!! Could be a design enhancement that could come in hand at the office......

Then a rest up and it's off to the Uffizi. Now I happily confess to being a philistine. Much prefer footy to Bottecelli, tennis to the opera, but we spent around 4 hours here and it was amazing. Mind you, there are only so many Mary's With The Child, or Crucified Jesus(es) or is that Jesis, that one can take and the Uffizi has them in spades, but nonetheless it was an amazing experience.

I had said to Siobhan that perhaps we should visit the Orsanmichelle Church and she thought I said the "Awesome Michelle" Church and that is was it has become.....Michelle, we hope to get a picture of your church when we pop in. We head again to our beautiful Piazza for dinner and it's a big night. Mariella, for a brief time the South American guys from the Vic Market are there playing pan pipes and are soon replaced by a local trio playing and singing some of the worst music you have ever heard. - a very angst ridden "Woman in Love", a positively dreadful rendition of Louis Armstrong's "Wonderful World" and the best/worst of all, an unintentionally camp version of "Betty Davis Eyes" Truly ghastly and hilarious- we needed two limoncellos - the local digestivo, to keep our meal down!!!!!

Good intestinal health to you all

Siobhan and Kelly xxx