Florence

 It started to rain late one Monday afternoon.  In fact, it started to rain in Rome at the exact moment that I set foot out of the university to go to the train station to catch my train to Florence.  It started to rain giant raindrops, and by the time I got to the bus stop at the bottom of the Angelicum drive, I was pretty well soaked, and my luggage was rather damp, too.  In fact, I took the rain with me from Rome to Florence, as shown by these photos I took from the train.

The nuns at the convent where I stayed in Florence forgot I was coming Monday night rather than Tuesday morning.  But they had a room for me anyway, and put me in room #1, which was lovely.  It was about a 10-step walk from the chapel, and about 15 steps from the breakfast room.  Apparently, before it became a guest room, this room had been part of a front parlor, right next to the main front door (no longer used) which leads straight to the chapel.  Then a wall was added to separate it from a room now used as a living room, and another couple of walls put up to make a bathroom in a corner.  My view was of the front garden, with fountain and turtles and seven garden gnomes.

From the convent, I could walk to the library where I spent my days poring over a beautiful, 14th Century manuscript, illustrated by an apparently bored rubricist with a sense of humor.  When he didn't have many chapter headings or decorated initials to insert, he whimsically decorated margins with vines, trees, flags, and faces to entertain himself (perhaps) and future readers who might come along, bored with the heavy philosophical content of the works included.  The three texts in this fun manuscript are from "Sanctus Thomas", "Magister Iohannes de Pooilly", and "Fratrus Albertus".

Also while in Florence, though, I was able to meet up with a couple of friends and acquaintances, and the time there just flew by, as I thought I could be quite comfortable staying there for a while...

No photo of the actual basilica, here is one from in front

On the last day, before I caught the train back to Rome, I hiked up the hill with a friend and arrived at the 999 year old basilica of S. Miniato.  If you get to Florence, I recommend either hiking or taking the bus up there to see it!  In all its long history, it has never been destroyed, despite of the many opportunities provided by war and strife.
(someone else did get a photo)