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Published: October 20th 2005
I’m sort of at a loss for words of what to say about my gorgeous weekend in Florence…
Florence is beautiful. It was a little smaller than I expected, but that’s one of the things that made it such a nice weekend. It was much more pedestrian oriented than Rome, so it was nice not having to worry about being run down by a pack of scooters or all the crazy traffic that’s in Rome. It was also great seeing so many buildings and pieces of art that I’ve studied.
We had to meet Emilio at Termini at nine Friday morning. The train ride to Florence was nice; I think the whole travel-by-train era should become popular again. We arrived in Florence, quickly dropped our bags at the hotel, and then Emilio had us running all over the city. We went to San Lorenzo, to see the Laurentian Library and the Old Sacristy, and after lunch, we toured the Uffizi Gallery, home of Michelangelo’s David. Unfortunately, the David wasn’t part of our tour, but I did see a lot of the paintings that I learned about last semester in art history, which makes me want to pick up a
Termini
Amy and Karaminor in art history.
That night, we walked around a little, which reminded me of our first nights in Rome…when we just walked, and walked, and walked. We looked at the jewelry on Ponte Vecchio, and I fell in love with a beautiful burgundy leather purse, that sadly I had to leave sitting in the window. We also saw a few more of the churches around Florence, and we went to a little jazz bar. Oh, I also helped Nathan bargain for a purse that he wanted to buy for one of his friends. I think we did a good job; I got the guy down 55 euro, and Nathan got him down another 15 euro…always making me do all the work…
The morning of our second day in the city, we toured the Hospital of the Innocents, the Museum of Florence, which gave a good history of the city, and the Baptistery of Santa Maria del Fiore. During lunch, we sort of had to flee a really expensive restaurant that we accidentally sat down at. After lunch, we toured Santa Croce and the Piazza Chapel, which we were supposed to see on Friday but we looked at
The train
Sarah and Brandi too much art. We also toured Santa Maria del Fiore and a few Renaissance palazzos.
The train ride back to Rome was pretty eventful. We boarded the train and started sitting in our seats, when we discovered that a lot of the seats seemed to be double-booked. Turns out that every single one of our tickets had been booked with the wrong month…September instead of October! We spoke to the conductor and he let us ride; most of us just didn’t have seats. I sat with a few of the girls in the dining cart and drank Pepsi and ate crackers…so I had no problems!
Since we didn’t have a ton of free time in the city, we missed seeing David, and we didn’t get to climb to the top of the Duome (which I HAVE to do...it's not even an option), I think I’ll be making another trip to Florence.
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To My Roma Travelgirl
Did the ceiling in Santa Croce remind you of St. Mary's? From the picture they look similar. The painted ceilings of Santa Maria del Fiore and the Baptistry would make me want to look up during chruch services. Maybe the people that go there are used to them. You looked very pretty in the last picture, but it looked like you were going for sugar overload! Can't wait for the next installment of your travelblog.