Sorry for the delay in Italia blog posts, I had some friends visiting this weekend, and a paper due at the last minute yesterday!
Leaving off on April 9, a Saturday morning. The girls and I reluctantly say goodbye to Venice, with this one last view of the city at sunrise...
Then it was off on a 3 hour train ride to Florence. When we arrived in the city we took a bus to our hostel, Hostel 7 Santi, which was about 10 minutes outside the main center of Florence. The bus system made it so easy for us to get back and forth though, so it was not a problem. The hostel was an old convent, so it was smack dab next to a beautiful church and the hostel itself was pretty big and spacious. Not as quiet as we would've hoped for an ex-convent, but it was nice nonetheless. We had two other roommates, girls from the States also visiting Florence from their study abroad location in Ireland. Good thing we had good roomies then, because come Rome hostel, things got weird. (more to come on that!)
After dropping our stuff off and relaxing for a few minutes, we headed into the city. Catching our first glimpse of the Duomo was so awesome! It was just awaiting us, in its dirty teal and rusty red colors.
It cost a decent amount of moola to get up into the dome, so we instead went into the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (love that name, by the way, it has a beautiful ring to it). Let's just say the outside of the duomo is prettier than the inside... I honestly wasn't that impressed, considering by that point I had also seen Westminster Abbey, La Sagrada Familia, Notre Dame and Sacre Coeur... oh, and the Sistine Chapel (in Rome a few days later). But moving on, we grabbed a small dinner of cheese, crackers and pizza bread and made the trek to Piazzale Michalengelo, for what was supposedly the best view of the city.
I would hope it'd be a good view after one heck of a vertical incline walk.
I'd say that's a pretty good view, don't you?
Me and the girls sat there for hours, just enjoying life and the amazing sunset that came around 8 p.m.
Florence is such a beautiful city. I didn't really know what to expect. I loved that it seemed to be perfectly plopped down in between the rolling Tuscan countryside and mountains. And the river and bridges, with the duomo in view at basically all times... it just worked.
I love this picture because of the reflection in the water! And the buildings just seem so perfectly aligned and compact.
Here's a view of the Ponte Vecchio, Florence's most famous bridge. It's lined with jewelry shops and even more tourists.
The next day we met up with Jackie's friend for breakfast at an American diner she knew of. While it's silly to eat American food while in Italy (of all places), it is not silly to eat American breakfast while anywhere in the world. Omelettes, bacon, pancakes, hashbrowns... too good to pass up. After that we headed to the leather market for some shopping. And while we all told ourselves "oh I'll probably only buy a small wallet or keychain, maybe a belt" we all left the market with a little more than that. For the girls, three beautiful leather jackets, for me, a brown leather purse I've been wanting forever. Success.
Then it was off to Galleria dell'Accademia to see Michelangelo's David. After waiting in line for about half an hour (not as bad as I was expecting), we finally saw the man himself. It was really cool. I've never seen such a huge statue. It's literally HUGE. If I stood next to him, I'd probably be a little taller than his knee.
...back to the hostel for some rest (this is the point where we are all exhausted from 4 months of traveling, and don't mind just hanging out). Then, with our hostel lady's recommendation, we headed down the street for a yummy Italian meal. Up until then we really hadn't had anything melt in your mouth worthy (aside from some scrumptious paninos), but we were in luck. I ordered something along the lines of tortellini and meat sauce, while Jen and Jackie both got a baked cheesey gooey ravioli thing, and Alex had a seafood and pasta extravaganza. Delicious. All of it.. we each had to try each other's food of course! Then came gelato (second of the day.. and absolutely necessary).
On Monday we went back into the city to find a food market Alex knew about. When we first came across it, it looked like just a bunch of fruit and veggie stands, then we wandered a little bit more and found food market heaven. Meats and pasta and nuts and more meats and fish and pastries and bruschetta and olive oil and balsamic and fruits. We made our way to a vendor (that Alex also knew about!) and got their infamous roast beef sandwich.
.....
I have been craving another one ever since. Best. sandwich. ever.
......
We also got free samples of biscotti. Yum. The Italians have some great food, that's all I have to say.
Then it was off to the Giardino di Biboli (gardens) behind the modern art museum for some more relaxation before catching the train to Rome.
^ Here's me at the gardens with my new bag :)
View from the Gardens... not too bad. Me and the girls just laid there relaxing and listening to music for a few hours... another one of those life is good moments. And of course I couldn't have asked for a better 3 girls to be there with (awwwhh). sidenote: Alex left for the states this morning, Jen is leaving tomorrow morning. This is not okay!!!! The semester is ending :( And I have two weeks, baaah!!
So that concludes the Firenze trip... we headed to Rome shortly after dinner (with our cheese and crackers again). Jen, Jackie and Alex got creative on the train ride and made cards out of napkins. Yes, 52 playing cards out of napkins. Then we realized, oh, you can see the number and suit pretty easily through the back of a napkin. Oh well, honor code it was. We threw on our sunglasses for a mean, competitive game of Go Fish. Off to Roma...
From Venice sunrises to Florence sunsets... Italia was treating us pretty well.
to be continued!
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