Florence pt. 1

This is the the first 6 days of our time in Florence. I could'nt do the last day because I'm too tired and will post that a little later. Also watch for pics from our last day in Florence, as well.

Well, we just concluded our 7 day stay in Florence, and I'm proud to say that I think we made the most of our time there.

We left from Venice around 10:00 in the morning and figured we'd have to pay $100 for our train tickets, but actually got them for $60. Once on the train, we settled down with a couple of Italian businessmen who spoke some Spanish. So we had a nice chat about American vs. European culture. Once in Florence we went straight to our hotel, which was very close to the station, and we left our bags and walked over to the main center of town where the massive Duomo awaited us. I think the hugeness of this cathedral and the brilliant green, red, and white marble is one the most impressive things I have seen yet. After some more admiring, we walked south towards to the Arno river and caught a glimpse of the Ponte Vecchio, the oldest bridge in Florence (built by the Romans). After that we walked a bit along the river and found another great church, Santa Croce. Here we saw the tombs of Michaelangelo, Galileo, and Machiavelli. A storm soon rolled through with considrable fury, so we took shelter and then headed home for the night.

Friday we decided that if we wanted to catch a Florence soccer match, we better get tickets early. So, we walked halfway across town to the stadium to pick up tickets for the match on Sunday. It was pretty damn cold and windy that day, so when we made it back to the center of town we went to the Uffizi gallery to get out of the cold and saw some great paintings and sculptures by some famous artists like Leonardo, Caravaggio, etc. Good stuff.

Saturday we headed for Pisa and spent half a day there taking pictures of tourists doing the typical Pisa pose. Pisa was very nice, but other than the tower, the church and baptistery, there Isn't else much to do. We headed back to Florence and had a glorious 3 course dinner for 13 Euros each. We actually alternated between 3 restaurants each night because they were such a good deal.

Sunday was the Fiorentina (Florence's Series A soccer team) match against Siena. The day before we bought a couple of shirts for the match and we were well prepared. Fiorentina won 1-0, so it was a nice afternoon around Florence. Once again we had dinner at one of our favorite spots near our hotel.

Just a quick story: we ran into another couple from Minneapolis in a Florence restaurant (while we were in Barcelona, 2 of our hostelmates were also from Minneapolis/Duluth. One of the nights at dinner we shared a table with a nice older couple from Manhattan, KS. Later on our train to Rome, we passed by a station in Orvieto and happen to see them again at the station. It just seems strange that in a country full of tourists you end up seeing the same people over and over

Anyways, to round out the last 3 days in Florence, we spent a full day on a tour of Siena, San Gimignano, and the Chianti region. It was real nice to just sit on a bus and get driven around all day. While in the Chianti region we took a great tour of a small organic farm where the owner provided us with free samples of his products, and showed us his wine and vinegar cellars. It was pretty nice. We ended up spending over 50 euros on wine, balsamic vinegar, marmalade, and olive oil.

Tuesday we saw a cool exhibition of Galileo and a bunch of stuff about early astronomy. I thought the exhibition was very well presented and they had some very old relics of astronomy including old maps, paintings, statues, sundials, all sorts of things. The Catholic church really tried to suppress the findings of Galileo and other astronomers that realized that the earth is not the center of the known universe, so much that Galileo had to renounce his own work so we wouldn't be excommunicated or possibly worse. I think we're beyond those days now, but it's amazing the power the church had over everything and everyone during this age. Oh, I should also mention that we saw Galileo's finger. It was sort of mummified and place in a glass case. It rested on a marble plaque that said something about how venerated Galileo was. He was godlike, apparently. The John Lennon of astronomy.


I will post the final day of Florence in a few days.