Friday, September 28, 2012

firenze






florence (firenze) is such a wonderful city. its a real change of pace from rome as florence seems to be less of a "city" than rome does (kind of like comparing rome to new york city and florence to boston... just different). we were fortunate enough to have two friends of my friends let the four of us crash in their apartment, so not only did i get to make new friends, but we had our own personal tour guides! after getting a later start than we had originally planned, we headed over to a restaurant called the diner... which had all american food! it was such a nice treat, and although not really a cultural experience, it is said that northern italy pizza is not as good as the pizza in rome so we didnt wanna take the chance (once again, the new york/boston reference is relevant). i had a cheese burger which was just as good as something you could get in the USA so i was overjoyed. after that, we headed over to one of the main piazzas (town squares) to take in some of the scenary. we then headed over to the ponte vecchio which is one of the oldest (and prettiest) bridges in the world(bottom picture). we then attempted to go to the uffizi museum (home to the david) but it was closed due to some sort of strike... as were almost all of the museums. so instead, we went to this museum/tower near by (which was apparently the only museum open) where we got to see some pretty cool architecture, murals, statues, and paintings. then, we climbed 283 steps to the top of the tower for a beautiful view of florence! we just sat for awhile and took in the view until we decided to go back and shower to get ready for dinner (top picture is view of the duomo). on our way to eat, we stopped by the michaelangelo piazza which gave us another beautiful view of the city. it is rumored that the prettiest sunset can be seen from the piazza however, by that time of the day it was starting to drizzle and it was a bit cloudy, but nevertheless we enjoyed taking a seat and listening to a lovely italian women sing "time after time." then we headed over to a restaurant where i had some authentic penne alla vodka, which needless to say was delicious! we then grabbed some gelato and headed back to the apartment which has a beautiful view of the duomo, which is such an impressive and gorgeous building. we then decided to spend the night by staying in and getting some much needed sleep as we are grabbing a train at 7am tomorrow to head to cinque terre, which literally translated to "five lands," but more information will come about that later!! overall, a fantastic trip thus far and hopefully more fun to come tomorrow!!

No comments:

Post a Comment