Again just a couple of minutes left at the Net cafe. I don’t even have any guidebooks with me in which I can look up spellings…

We wandered around Florence again today, this time in the general direction of the synagogue. It’s nice-looking on the outside, but pretty dark and unattractive inside. The museum upstairs is small and is so poorly labeled that if you don’t happen to go with an orthodox Jew who is your spouse, little of it would mean much. One of the exhibits does helpfully explain that Florence has had on and off relationships with Jews over the past 800 years, going through times of acceptance and times of not-so-acceptance. There are currently about 1,000 Jews in the city. The one kosher market doesn’t seem big enough to support them all.

We had lunch in a kosher vegetarian restaurant, Ruth’s, that serves pretty good Italian and Israeli food. The cous-cous was good.

We walked to a church, the name of which I won’t get right, that has an exhibit in its bowels featuring Michelangelo’s Medici tombs and lots of reliquaries. I have to say that exhibiting the bones of dead saints seems a tad pagan, but who am I to judge? But it does make you wonder if there’s a respectful way of cutting up a saint for display.

This evening we go to Venice by train…

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