After 3 days of organized tours, we planned on just walking around Florence on Saturday. We slept in and met Kara about noon.We took a roundabout way to Kara's, going up the hill and following the the old city wall on top of the hill before cutting down to Kara's street.
We ran across some interesting statues along the way. it is amazing how much artwork is all over this city. There are many small parks and garden areas that are full of various artworks and statues. The Arno river flooded in 1966 and damaged a lot of precious artwork. Much of it was saved due to the help of local and international Mud Angels, who helped move, clean and restore many of the works. A park along the river is dedicated to the Mud Angels
I picked up a couple of geocaches along the way, and we walked past one of the homes that Galileo was imprisoned after he published his works on the sun being the center of the solar system.
After getting to Kara's, we headed into town to do some shopping at the Mercato Nuevo. This is an open air market that sells local products such as leather goods, clothing, scarves and shoes. You can barter with the sellers, so you are never sure if you are getting a good deal or not. From there, we headed to the Centro Mercato, which is an indoor market dealing more with food and beverages. These include wine, olive oil, fresh breads, meats and cheeses. Since we were in the market later in the afternoon, many of the shops were starting to close down. We bought some balsamic vinegar and truffle oil to take home.
Our lunch was in a deli not far from Kara's apartment. It was along narrow shop and was filled with breads, cheeses and meats. The first step was to pick out your bread, then add your cheese selection, any vegetables and finally the meats. The items were weighed out and you payed by the weight. The selections were enormous and the sandwiches were delicious.
We wandered down to the Piazza della Signoria, a plaza housing many famous statues, including a replica of the famous statue of David. The statues are various sizes, from life size to 3x life size. Most are made from marble, but some are bronze or other materials. I can't imagine the time it must take to carve one of these statues, or the amount of help and support needed by the master artist 
As we wondered around Florence and seeing all the old art, we also noticed a lot of new art, from sidewalk chalk drawings of the masterpieces (made while you watch), to caricature artists and jewelry artisans. One artist creates interesting art using the do not enter signs around town. He adds his own stickers to them to create a new sign. Apparently the city of Florence has not tired to remove the stickers and allows the art to remain.
Our last stop of the day was at Piazza Michelangelo. It is on the hill above the city on the south side of the river. There is a nice Rose Garden nearby and a large replica of the statue of David. We were there for the evening so that we could watch sunset, and it was well worth it. We took a bunch of photos of the various landmarks that we had visited while in Florence, and some nice sunset photos
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