Guide. The city has been entirely improved, sir. There is the new Palazzo Municipale. It is superb.
Tourist. I don't think I should care for that. What else is there?
Guide. There are the new Boulevards, the Piazza Umberto and the Ponte Nuovo. They are all magnificent, and the American visitors admire them very much. So do the English visitors, but there are very few of them. It is curious, for Florence has been made quite new and handsome.
Tourist. I don't wish to see new buildings. Isn't there anything old?
Guide. Oh, yes, sir, of course. There is the Piazzo Vittorio Emmanuele. That is more than thirty years old.
Tourist. I remember the hideous square. But where are the old buildings? How about the Baptistery?
Guide. Oh, that was pulled down six years ago to make more room for the tramways. It was a dark, ugly old place. There is a beautiful new Battistero now, made of glass and iron, like the Crystal Palace near London, put up in place of the old Cathedral which nobody liked.
Tourist. What? You don't mean to say Giotto's Tower has gone?
Guide. There was some old campanile. I think it was sold to the Hawaii Territory World's Fair Syndicate.
Tourist. Anyhow, there's the Ponte Vecchio.