Our final day in Florence, our plane didn’t depart until the early afternoon, leaving us a little time to see the city one last time and eat at another cafe.
We walked to the Galileo Museum which housed an interesting variety of scientific tools and gadgets. The heart of the museum was a gallery on the second floor with pieces dedicated to Galileo – his only two surviving telescopes, the lens through which he first saw the moons of Jupiter, and his mummified finger. The museum holds an extensive collection of measurement devices and clocks.
After lunch, collected our luggage and took a taxi back to the airport. The Florence airport is a small facility. We were concerned because there was a national strike that day of travel workers, but our airport was unaffected.
A short 90-minute flight took us to Munich, where we faced a 17-hour layover. We landed at about 6 PM and our next flight was scheduled to leave at 11 AM. Diana discovered a Hilton on the airport property and she found we had enough Hilton points to get us a free night there.
Outside the hotel was a huge Christmas market with craft and food stalls. Inside the hotel was a huge banquet for Lear. It was festive all around. The hotel room was very comfortable and much better than sleeping in the airport. The next morning we walked to our terminal for an 11-hour flight to Denver. In Denver, we had to go through Customs and collect-and-recheck our bags. We had just enough time to get to our terminal and get ready for boarding. A short flight home had us back in the mid evening.