Firenze! (April 6-8)

Firenze!

(Click on the church to see the rest of my pictures!)

April 6 -- We got up early on Monday and took the train up to Florence. We were a little sad because we had finally gotten to know Rome and now we had to leave! Oh well, that's just how it goes. We took the train which was about 3 hours and we had a nice tea and pastry. It was very old school, with cabins for six people. Anyway, as soon as we got to Florence, we loved it! It was so calm and quiet, not as crowded and much easier to navigate. Our hostel was delightful, clean and amazing. We lunched and then took our tourist bus around the city. When that was finished, we had some gelato and walked over to the Duomo. We went into the church and wandered around, took some pictures of the inside and outside. Wow. There is a lot going on there! We climbed to the top of the Duomo and it was so beautiful! It was warm and still, I wanted to stay forever. We eventually, reluctantly, climbed back down and walked over the Ponte Vecchio. We wandered and looked around for a while before having some dinner and hitting the hay.

April 7 -- We got up early to go to the Uffizi, but when we got there there was already a giant line! A German guy told us that we could buy reserve tickets for the afternoon, and we were very glad that we did that! So we switched out afternoon plans to the morning and headed over to the Palazzo Pitti to check out the Boboli Gardens. We also went to a Costume Gallery at the palace which was pretty cool. There were clothes from three centuries, very neat. The Boboli Gardens were alright, but we really liked the Bardini Gardens which were nearby. The Bardini Gardens were smaller but much more interesting and there were far fewer school groups! (Actually, we were the only people there.) We had a wonderful pizza and gelato lunch, then headed over to the Uffizi. There was lots of great stuff there, including Botticelli's Primavera and the Birth of Venus and Titian's Venus of Urbino. Works by Caravaggio and other Italian greats were all worth seeing, but walking through the museum very quickly made us tired. We relaxed back at the hostel and then went for dinner with two American boys from Georgetown who are studying at Oxford.

April 8 -- We slept in a bit later and had our customary breakfast of pastry and tea. We headed over the Galleria Della Accademia to see David. On our way, we saw an old man with a jaunty feather in his cap, singing in the street! We waited in line, but not too long. There was a really cool special exhibit of old musical instruments. I learned the difference between a piano and a harpsichord! Are you ready for me to school you? A Harpsichord plucks the string, while a piano strikes the string. Now you know! David was really cool, I knew the statue was big, but I had no idea it was that big! It really is amazing. Unfortunately, there was nothing else cool in the museum. Lame. After that, we headed over to Santa Croce to see where all the famous Florentines are buried. We saw the tombs of Michelangelo, Galileo, Macchiavelli and a few others. The church was huge and very pretty with lots of nice frescoes. There was also a Leather School in the back, where you could buy all kinds of neat leather goods and watch people make stuff! Neat. Once we were done there, we decided to go to H&M because we still had some money left. We went out for dinner with the two American boys again, and I had my Floretine steak and it was DELICIOUS! Yum.

Thoughts on Florence--
-So much prettier, easier, more modern than Rome
-More relaxing, though still heaving with tourists
-There is graffiti Everywhere in Italy!!
-The Florentine police wear such funny white hats!