Florence

We got to Firenze (Florence in Italian) at night after much train confusion. First we almost jumped off the train in Florence because we were scared we missed our stop. Then we had to take another train to the station in Florence that we wanted. But the actual train ride wasn’t that bad. There was even a trolley, but no chocolate frogs.

(anything off the trolley dears?)

We followed our directions to the hostel that Lindsay got offline. They were kind of shady, like “take the left exit of the train station” and “take the fourth right and go down the street” but we eventually made it to the hostel. It was actually pretty nice and we got our own room. It even had a sink.

We were hungry, and remembered passing a McDonald’s on our way. When we got there, we realized it was like 6 euros for a Happy Meal so we walked down random streets looking for a place to eat. We found this little café and each got a different type of Italian food. I got cannoloni, Angie got bruscetta, and Lindsay got spaghetti. Then we went back to the hostel and went to sleep.

By today, we had gotten into a bad habit of sleeping in past our alarm clocks. We finally got out of bed at 8:30 and grabbed our stuff, ready to experience Florence. The guy who works there said we could leave our backpacks at the hostel for the day. He seemed legit- he spoke like 4 languages and the hostel won a ton of Let’s Go! Awards- so we left our backpacks in a room upstairs.

The first thing we wanted to do was see the David statue. Not as easy as it sounds. The guy had circled a lot of random places on the map, and we ended up at the wrong place. Unfortunately, we didn’t realize until after we were looking at random statues and pieces of art that David was not there. So we left and found the actual David statue. It was huge. And so detailed. It was 17 feet tall and towered over everyone. It was one of those things that you just think “how in the world could someone make that?” It only took Michelangelo 3 years (1501-1504) to sculpt. We looked around at other artwork and then left for our next stop: the Duomo.

(not real david statue place)

(Duomo)

The Duomo is actually a huge church in the shape of a cross. It was pretty, but even prettier on the inside. There was lots of stained glass windows and a painted ceiling. We left after like 15 minutes and headed for the Ponte Vicchio. It is a famous bridge that is now filled with expensive jewelry shops. I think it was like the only bridge not destroyed in some battle in World War 2. We took lots of pictures on the bridge and walked down it. The bridge was so beautiful, and so was the view of the river and the mountains. I really wish I had learned European geography because I had no idea that Italy even had mountains!!

ponte vicchio

We only had one thing left on our must-see list, which was the Piazza Michelangelo. We decided to stop and have some lunch. We all got bruscetta, which was good, but then again so is all the food in Italy. We had also planned on going shopping, but everything seemed very expensive, so we gave up on that real fast. We crossed the river and headed towards the Piazza Michelangelo.

It was a long walk, and it wasn’t even on the map. The hostel guy just drew an arrow and a circle and told us to go in that general direction. We walked past what Angie called the “Beverly Hills” of Florence. There were beautiful houses and trees with amazing views. It was all uphill too. We talked about how cool it was to be in the same city that some of our sorority sisters had studied abroad in. We finally got to the top. OMG. Words cannot describe the view. Even this picture can’t.

It was soooo beautiful. We could see the whole city, with the mountains in the background and the river in front. We saw the bridges and a bunch of hills and trees on either side. We took a ton of pictures. We stayed up there for awhile just staring at the view. We even saw a bride and groom taking pictures.

Then we started our walk back. We stopped for gelato along the way. One of our sorority sisters, Kaitlyn, had told us to get Corona Gelato. We were so confused, but we looked for corona flavored gelato in every gelato shop we passed. Finally we gave up and just got regular gelato. About 2 minutes later we passed a sign that said “Corona Gelato.” Oh, it was a store. That made more sense.

Then we got back to our hostel, grabbed our stuff, and got tickets to Verona. Good bye Florence!!