Florence and The Renaissance: Day 3

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Buonogirno,

Today we're getting out of Milan and going to spend the day in Florence but first we have to fuel our bodies with some breakfast. The hotel offers breakfast so we don't have to leave the hotel to eat, one thing about breakfast at the hotel their is a family we have seen the last two days down there who are very interested in me and my wife. The first day the husband couldn't stop staring at me, every time I looked up he was looking at me, then the wife and the daughter, yesterday my wife said she didn't notice them staring, maybe they found out I wasn't famous footballer and we're disappointed, that's me trying to be optimistic about why they were staring at us.

We're done with breakfast now it's time to head to Central Station for our trip, after the first day we have a better feeling for the station, so we knew where to go to get tickets. We found an automated machine to purchase round trip tickets to Florence and headed up the moving walkway to the train gates. The train station was very busy with people coming and going from all parts of Italy, we found our gate and security looked at our ticket then let us through. We had some time to spare so the track that our train wasn't shown on the board yet, we stood looking at the screen for a while until the track showed up and once that appeared we walked that way. The ride to Florence is almost two hours long, not too bad but the train was a little bit warm but I still tried to nap on the way there, after a pretty warm ride to Florence the train finally pulls into Firenze SMN station and we get off the train.

The weather in Florence is pretty nice, it's a slight overcast and a nice breeze when we arrive, the station is nowhere near as big as the one in Milan. We head out and on our adventure for the day, one thing I did notice was their was maybe three McDonalds within the first block of us leaving the station, well one was in the train station but two were on the street across from the train station. My wife thought it was funny to ask if I wanted to stop and eat there, we had a laugh then made our way down the street and stopped at a cafe to get lunch. My wife had some red wine and I had an Italian beer, then we ordered food, I had pizza which is different from pizza in America and my wife had rigatoni bolognese. The food was delicious then the waiter asked if we wanted dessert, but of course so we shared a bowl of tiramisu, while we ate it started to drizzle but soon that passed by.

We didn't have a map to the city so we just followed the crowd and hopefully it led us to where we wanted to go. The city of Florence is the birthplace of Renaissance art and when you are there you feel like you have been sent back in time, the city is an art lover's dream. Our first stop was Accademia Gallery to see the Statue of David created by Michaelanglo and the crowd led us right to the front of the museum and the long lead waiting to get in too. I was prepared I bought tickets in advance so I went to the ticket office to pick them up and we walked right in to the displeasure of the many people in line but times like this it pays to plan ahead. Accademia is known for being the home to the Statue of David but their is so much more to see than just David, art work at this time was religious based but very detailed and colorful. All the paintings told a story and we walked around soaking it all up, we left the first room and head into the main hall and you can see the Statue of David, it is a massive structure standing almost twenty feet tall with a light shining on it, it was amazing to see. We moved on to the hall of statues that was the next room and another room with some artwork before the Renaissance. Now it was time to roam the streets of Florence, next stop was the Piazza del Duomo but before we made it there we made a few stops and did some shopping.

Piazza del Duomo is a large city square that is full of activity but in the middle of it all is the Basilica of Santa Maria del Fiore, it's the third largest cathedral in the world, I can't imagine how big the other two are cause this one was gigantic. I remember it from playing Assasain's Creed and scaling the rooftop on the game but I really couldn't see myself scaling the rooftop like the game. As we walk around it, their is the Campanile di Giotto, which is an observation tower in the Piazza, I attempted to go to the top but tickets were sold out until Friday so that adventure will have to wait until another time. We walked around some more soaking up the culture, then we made our way towards the shops to do some more shopping, we looked in a few stores before we made our way back towards the train station. A few hours of looking at art and shopping I worked up an appetite, living in Texas we drive a lot and coming to Europe people walk a lot more, I liked at the distance we walked this walked and it's more than any distance I've walked at home. One word of advice if you come to Europe, be sure to wear comfortable shoes, you'll thank me later. We walk past McDonalds again on the way back, my wife offers again and I pass so I get to one of the shops in the train station and get a panini, my few days over here I've learned that just about all the Italian food we eat in America has been changed from it's original form and this panini isn't any different. We had a long wait for our train, so I asked the train attendant if he could change our train to one leaving sooner and he changes our ticket no problem, so instead of waiting an hour and half, we only had to wait twenty minutes for a train. Thankfully the ride back is a lot cooler and I sleep all the way back to Milan, we hop off the train and head back to the hotel. On the way back we walk past a bar singing karaoke, we were tempted to go in, but we were tired from a busy day in Florence. We make it back to the room, sorry no gelato tonight but we had a great time in Florence, have a good night and arrivederci.

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