Firenze

Ciao! I spent an amazing weekend in Florence and thought I should write about it before I forget all the details.

FRIDAY:
My friend Cecilia and I left after classes on Friday and caught an afternoon train to Florence. As we pulled into the Santa Maria Novella station it was pouring! I thought about how I had only brought summer clothes to wear...Luckily it stopped raining long enough for us to get to the hostel, which was surprisingly easy to find. The hostel was very nice, clean, great shower and fun girls in our room. We dumped our stuff and ran off to explore the city right away. It didn't take us very long to find the Duomo, and at first sight it was simply breath taking. We had to stand and crane our necks for a few minutes in awe. I loved the colors especially, the green and pink accents. We wandered around the main square where the Duomo and bapistery are for awhile before deciding it was time for dinner. We found a great little restaurant near our hostel that seemed reasonable and had an amazing meal. It was more of a family style restaurant so we got to know the people sitting on both sides of us, it was alot of fun. I had some pesto pasta to remember. After dinner we were stuffed and took a short walk to digest, luckily it stayed clear for us all evening, no rain :)

SATURDAY:
Saturday morning we got up and were out the door at 9 am (impressive, I know). We headed straight for the open air San Lorenzo market, which we heard at dinner the night before was a must see. The market was great, row after row of leather goods and pashminas, I didn't even know where to start. Cecilia and I both bought gorgeous leather bags and some shawls. I found a green pashmina that is a great match with my eyes hehe. Then it started pouring. Cecilia bought an umbrella and I whipped mine out and we headed in the direction of the Academia. We still had an hour before our reservation, so we popped into a cafe and had coffee, croissants, and I had some pizza yum. Then we went on to the Academia and I was so glad I had made reservations as we walked past the huge line of soaking people and got right inside. The David was magnificent. It was so great getting to see it up close for the first time. Just trying to understand that a person carved it by hand stretches the imagination. I loved seeing the veins in his hand, and the expression on his face. All in all definitely worth the cover fee. We went to a self serve cafeteria for lunch and had some not so great pizza for not so great prices. It was a bit difficult to eat well on a budget in Florence, so we did our best. After lunch it continued to drizzle and we decided it was the perfect time for a nap.

POST NAP:
We rubbed the sleep out of our eyes after a few hours...and headed towards the Ponte Vecchio (bridge over the water). First we hit the Piazza Signorina on the way, quite beautiful with lots of statues. Finally we made it to the water. This was one of my favorite parts of the weekend trip. I just loved the atmosphere and the beautiful views over the water. We of course walked across the Ponte Vecchio and were overwhelmed by all the jewelry! It is crazy the amount of stores that are crammed onto the bridge. We had a good time window shopping. It showed signs of starting to rain again so we dipped into a cafe for some gelato. sooo good. After I took a good fifty pictures (at least...) we went back towards the tourist area, and started shopping for sweatshirts. After a day in the rain with a skirt on I definitely needed one. It had been so warm it didn't occur to me to pack say pants or tennis shoes or a heavier sweatshirt. Found a cute one and moved on to dinner. We ate at the same place (too good to pass up) and I had great linguine al vongole. We were super tired afterward and headed straight back to the hostel for showers and sleeeep.

SUNDAY:
got up too early for my taste (7:30) and were out the door by 8:30 to make our reservation at the Uffizi Gallery for 9am. I was happy again that I had made reservations. It was so amazing to see the Botticelli paintings up close. That was easily my favorite part of the Uffizi although I also liked the one painting by Michelangelo, some of Raphael's paintings, and some by Titian. The view of the ponte vecchio from the Uffizi was gorgeous, you could see quite a ways down the canal. We spent a couple hours wandering the Uffizi and I was very happy that my guidebook had commentary on the important paintings, it really provided insight that I otherwise wouldn't have know about. I also eavesdropped on a couple English tours until one tour guide gave me the evil eye...
Next I had a quick snack and my friend Cecilia headed to mass inside the Duomo. I saw the sun peeking out of the clouds and decided to try and get some better pictures at the Ponte Vecchio. It started raining again (after i got my pictures YAY). After Cecilia finished mass, we got some lunch at a really nice cafe behind the Duomo- great pizza. We were a bit tired out from our action packed weekend and decided to take a slightly earlier train home, but not before we stopped at the outdoor market to pick up shawls for our host mothers back in Perugia.

SUMMARY:
my favorites: The Ponte Vecchio
Botticelli's birth of venus
Titian's venus of Urbino

Overall LOVED Florence, even though we didn't have the best weather for picture taking and sightseeing(cloudy, grey and rainy). I wish I could have gotten a little more off of the tourist track, I'm not sure a got the real feeling for the city. I want to go back to Florence already....I still want to see the Bobali gardens and climb up Giotto's tower ( I didn't think it was worth it this time- too cloudy to see very far). It was fun to spend a few days in a big city, very different from smaller town Perugia.
All in all a very busy weekend and a great trip!