Gertrude Herdle Letter Vecchio 8-11-21

              Pension Luccesi,
Lungarno della Zuca Vecchio,
August 11, 1921

My dearest Family,

I am profiting by the coolness of the early morning when my energy is freshest
to write to you and try to tell you of the wonderful delights we have found in Florence. 
They have been enough to make us decide to give up Siena, Pisa, Ravenna, Perugia,
and Assisi, and concentrate on the greater marvels here.  Other things are
"interesting" or "picturesque" or "important" according to people here at the Pension,
but Florence is all of that in the superlative degree.  And the Pitti and Uffizzi 
Galleries simply demand whole days.  I have been to both of them twice and am going 
to squeeze in another visit to each on this our last day.  Besides, there is a Pallio 
or medieval horse-race going on in Siena, and hotel accommodations are at a premium;
Pisa is the picture post-card kind of beauty and I don't like it; Ravenna is 
early Christian and Baedeker stars just the Cathedral and Mausoleum of Theodoric[sic], which do not warrant our stopping off- and I shouldn't know where to stop,- the hotels are wretched; and Perugia and Assisi would take two whole days out of our time here- nothing could be worth that.  The Currans helped us in our decision.