firenze

we got into florence mid morning and checked into our hotel. it was absolutely adorable and the little old man who helped us was just too sweet. our hotel was on a very small and quiet street and in the mornings I awoke only to the chirping of birds outside. our first stop was to a few museums, Academie and Uffizi. I got to take a photo of michelangelo's david, but most everything else was off limits but all the sculptures were incredible. there was one room filled with busts-from the chest or neck up-with hundreds of sculptures of royalty. of course what I found so fascinating were the women's hair styles and how they changed over the generations just as they do today. some of the hairstyles I saw, though maybe hundreds of years old I have seen reoccurring in todays fashions. loved it. I saw the works of michelangelo, leonardo di vinci, raphael, botticelli and so many more. 

after our day at the museums we walked around a bit and settled into a snack bar for dinner. snack bars are small cafe's with food, panini's, pasta, lasagna, ready to re-heat. well it was an experience we can say that, but it sure saved my pocket book for the night so that was alright. it seemed florence had quite the night life, many students choose to come to florence to study abroad so I'm sure that factors in.

the next day we went straight away to the Duomo, 463 stairs later we were at the top. it was a work out but well worth it! afterwards we strolled around across the pointe vecchio bridge and found our way up to a large piazza with spectacular views of the city. after a few photos there we sat on a bench and enjoyed our surroundings, not to mention resting our feet. there were a lot of tour groups so we tried to guess where each were from, then there were students and locals taking a run, it was a fun place to people watch. we found a pizzeria for dinner and I had not only pizza but bruschetta as well. to my surprise and sheer delight, upon taking a bite of my bruschetta I found that what I make back at home tastes identical! hooray- so reassuring! afterwards we had gelato, and what I believe was my favorite of all my gelato experiences just across the piazza. this lady really scooped us some gelato, I chose mixed berry and fruit salad - oh was it divine. we ate our gelato while we walked along the river back to our hotel, we had an early morning train to pisa to catch.