Italy Part 3

Florence or Firenze


Of all the places I have ever been and will ever be - Florence will always be my favourite. There is something about that city - it is the calm of the city, the winding streets, the buildings and the people. I am in love with Florence.

From Naples we took a 4 hour train ride to Florence. Florence is a wonderful city. It is just beautiful. Even if you dont do any site-seeing, just walking on the streets of Florence will be site seeing enough. It has all the makings of a romantic holiday! Cobble stoned streets, old buildings, wonderful winding streets, beautiful piazzas and delicious gelato. What more could you ask for?  


You can walk to one of the many bridges on the River Arno to just, well, hang out or sit in a cafe doing nothing. Let Florence work its charm on you.

  

The first day we got there we went to see the Duomo. It is hard to not see the Duomo just cause it is huge. It is a must. The inside is beautiful. There are free tours given by students. We met this awesome guy who was from US and gave his tour which was awesome! Duomo was awesome. Also, You can also go up the dome. The climb is about 400 steps and if you are claustrophobic - you might want to not do it. It wasnt too bad but if there are lots of tourists then - certainly you can get breathless. There are two levels to the dome. Level one takes you closer to the Frescoes on the dome and level two will take you even closer. The final walk is on top of the dome looking out at the city. Go up. Really, it was well worth it.

After doing the Duomo we walked around Florence and you have to do that. Florence is a city like no else. There is culture, beauty, art, history and a pulse - all together every where you walk. It is put simply - wonderful.

We ate a tonne of gelato in Florence. You cant really go wrong.

We also found the best pizza in the world in Florence. This place (again if you want specific details about this place email me and I will send you details) was amazing. You could only order 3 kinds of pizzas: marinara (tomato sauce, garlic and oregano), margarita (tomato sauce and bocconcini and basil) and napolitana (tomato sauce, anchovies, capers and bocconcini). We ate at this place the 2 nights we were there. The pizzas were cooked in this wood fired oven and was made right in front of you. I dream about those pizzas. They were sooooooooo good.

We also had a chance to go the local street shops. Near the supermercato in Florence there are tonnes of vendors selling decent to good leather bags, shoes, jackets, purses, belts and scarves among other things. Be prepared to bargain. It was very cool to do that. Spent almost half a day there. It was fun.

From there we went to Ponte Vecchio - you know the bridge, the very famous bridge! Just opposite the bridge was this awesome glove factory. J bought some real nice leather gloves for like a $100. They are beautiful. This place is where locals buy their gloves and it also ships gloves all over the world.

Hmm, the last day was for the Uffizi. We had already done the Gallaria della'Accademia for the statue of David. Now for both these places you need to buy tix in advance during tourist seasons - which now is like all the time in Italy. So, make sure you do that at least 2 or 3 days in advance if you going in October. Uffizi was disappointing. Very much so. It seemed like they took all the paintings and sculptures and just threw them in a museum. There was no order or anything to it. But seeing the 'Birth of Venus' was still amazing!

Obviously, see the statue of David. The original not the fake. It was very cool and you can see why it is so famous!

We also went to the scientific museum - not sure what the name is but it is very close to the Uffizi and was worth going to. You can see Galileo's original instruments among other cool and horrifying things.
Yes, horrifying! The museum has original terracotta and wax casts used by doctors to see and understand pregnancy. It was cool but also horrifying b/c they were so accurate that they looked real.

Anyways, all in all it was cool to be in Firenze. Next stop Lucca!