@brittarnhild
When you walk on asphalt and cobblestones hour after hour after hour, your feet get tired. Really tired. What a blessing then to find an open church, with benches where you can sit in silence, and in prayers, and may be even have a little powernap. That´s what we did this afternoon in the church Orsanmichele, close to Piazza delle Repubblica. What a lovely church. What a good place to be.
After some time, may be half an hour, we felt completely fresh, rose and were on our way out of the church when an elderly signora stopped us: "Come here, this is a special gift for couples in love, walk up the 54 steps and you´ll see......"
The 54 steps turned out to be quite a lot more, but it was truly worth it. We came up to Orsanmichele museum, on the first and second floor over (!) the church.
I have never heard of this church with the strange name but google is a very good travel helper. There I learn that Osrammichele means the kitchen garden of St.Michael and the church got its name since it was built on the site of the kitchen garden of the St. Michele monastery in 1337. It was originaly built as a grain market, I guess that explains the floors over the church.
On the museumsinfirenze website, you can read the fascinating tale about the statues. I fell in love with Madonna della Rosa by Pietro di Giovanni Tedesco, made around 1400. 1400!!!!!!! Can you imagine.
I have been looking back at my post from when I visited Florence in 2010, and smile when I read what I wrote about the sweets God were giving me. The steps up to the Orsanmichele was a sweet for sure. May be it was an Italian Easter chocolate egg. One of the biggest.
Or a special rose from Mary!
