Another whirlwind day in Italy

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Our excursion to Florence started our poorly. The ride was supposed to be 1.5 hours and actually took 2.5 hours! We had a reservation to the see the David at 10:30 AM but we weren't even close to Florence at 10:30. Needless to say, we were annoyed. Luckily, when we finally got to Florence, the Academia (museum where David is) still let us in, even though our appointment was an hour earlier. We preordered our tickets for the Academia and Uffizi musuems before we left and it was SO worth it. The lines to get into both muesums were crazy. And we just walked right in! The David was unbelievable. It's huge! The pedestal he stands on is about 10 feet tall and he's about 20 feet tall. You aren't supposed to take pictures inside, but everyone was, so Chris snuck a few.

We were able to grab a few pictures of the Duomo, the main cathedral in Florence. It was huge. We were in a hurry, so we couldn't go in, but we will have to return to Florence to get the inside view.

Chris was like a kid in a candy store at the Uffizi. There was a long hall with busts of famous Romans. He kept bouncing from one side of the hall to the other, excitedly calling out the names of the emperors. The Uffizi also had a ton of paintings by the Masters - Michaelango, Rafael, the other Ninja Turtles, etc. It was pretty cool.

We grabbed panini for lunch and then viewed the sculptures in the Piazza della Signoria. Then we did some shopping. I bought an absolutely fabulous purse. We then headed back to Livorno, the port closest to Florence. On the way back, we were able to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa out the bus window. Tomorrow it's a big travel day - back home to Downers Grove!

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