We're in an expensive internet cafe in Florence (I've heard this is fairly par) and I seem to have been given more time than I paid for, so I'll use it to brag about having been to both the Uffizi and the cupola of the Duomo in the past 24 hours. Judge as you will, but I never realized that Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Primavera were at the Uffizi, so when I walked into the Botticelli room, I didn't notice them. I walked from one painting to the next and suddenly realized that the fourth one I saw was v

My internet luck ran out, I guess. To continue:

I'd seen the fourth painting dozens of times before, but in books and on computer screens. My first year tutor was so right. Brush strokes and little swirls of colour and texture become so much more apparent and important in person. Just fabulous.

Less glamorous is the climb to the top of the Duomo. I was still half dressed in my pyjamas and after the first set of stairs, switched on my iPod so I could have something else to think about. We reached the cupola sweaty and stiff but it was as worth it as everyone says. It was cloudy, which meant that we could stay in the shade, so we had a while to cool off and seriously enjoy the view. I picked out buildings to live in. Anything with turrets or surrounded by trees that could yield olives.

There's a menu that lists more than eight different kinds of gnocchi so that's where we'll have dinner tonight. And then we're going to a concert at the Bargello, which, incidentally, is the site of a production of Macbeth next month. Fun activity: discussing how to stage Macbeth in that space and how it would be The Coolest Thing Ever. There's a well in the centre of the courtyard. We agreed that the witches should make their first entrance by climbing out of it.

The other amazing thing that happened today: we saw Michelangelo's David. As I walked away, I heard a guy say, "It's just like so much perfect detail. And it's fucking big!" He got it. Incidentally, the Accademia is presenting an exhibition of the photography of Robert Mapplethorpe in and around various Renaissance works, including those of Michelangelo, who was Mapplethorpe's favourite. It is highly unexpected that such an old institution would curate a display of work by a gay American whose work was often controversial (photos of erect penises and the like). I thought it was gutsy. And I spotted a photo of an orchid that I wished I could purchase for my mother but it was unavailable. Alas.