AC Firenze Florence

... through that particular medium. In addition to sculpture, the City's architecture also reached back to try and capture the spirit and skill of the ancients. The Duomo was the first dome of its kind built in 1000 years, and Brunellechi studied Rome's Pantheon in preparation for his crowning achievement. <br><br>In addition to providing us with a great tour of the Uffizi, Rick Steves also put together a fantastic walking tour of the ...

... we walked toward an Italian restaurant whose famous salad made my mouth water. Our guide told us about it our first night and I had been thinking about it ever since. We found this tiny restaurant in the twisted streets of the old Jewish ghetto and unfortunately, they weren't open yet. Oh, hum. <br><br>So we continued onward to the Colosseum where the blue skies provided an amazing backdrop to this richly historical site. Our Rick Steves ...

... spoke English perfectly (of course!). Plus one of the women had lived in Italy for nearly fifty years, so she spoke Italian and helped me with the menu. The food was good, though the dessert rather disappointing as it was clearly store bought and not homemade (pear and chocolate tart, but not very chocolatey, or pear-y for that matter).<br><br>The next morning I got up feairly early and walked to the Uffizi to be there for my 9:15am booking. I probably didn't really ...

... companions in Carozza 10 helped me to bring down my heavy backpack from the train rack, brought my shoes out from under the seat, and put the backpack on my back. I said a jolly "grazie" and "ciao" to them. First thing I did, I popped into the small tourist office in the station and got charged 1 euro for a map (this is the first place in Italy where the official tourist office charges you, and it may be the only one). <br><br> Outside SMN station, I surveyed the ...

Rented an apartment in a villa which was at the top of a mountain (like most villas in Tuscany), however, our journey to the top was not on a paved road which made for some challenging driving. The villa was really nice with its own pool and great view over the countryside. The owners also provided fabulous meals in their other ...

... the detail, it was truly incredible. Even the doors had famous artists vying to create the panels and some credit the Renaissance as beginning in 1410 when a young artist was awarded the task of creating 10 panels for the front door of the church, beating out many renowned artists of the time. <br><br>In any case, we crisscrossed the city and all the neighborhoods, peeking into churches ...

... a bit bored, but art aficionados could spend hours and hours looking at all the Renaissance paintings and sculptures. We did manage to see works by all 4 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Michelangelo, Rafael, Donatello and Leonardo (Da Vinci). Mich took photos of these artists' sculptures out the front while I recreated the poses of each ninja turtle underneath. We checked out the Ponte Vecchio, Florence's famous bridge, which is filled with ...

While we were (very visibly) sombre about the break-in events of the past couple of days, travelling onto Florence as planned to meet Nick and Catherine was probably exactly what we needed. Nick and Catherine had very kindly booked and paid for a great modern apartment for us for the weekend right in the middle of Florence, and had booked us all tickets to see¨"David". Now, not sure if ...

... for Florence souvenirs, actually fridge magnets ;) and also postcards we almost completely encircled the Duomo. Speaking of fridge magnets, if there were things that ...

... herself, mind you she still spoke pretty good Scottish accented English. She laughingly claimed that her man was not the Italian Stallion type. Next morning we made the short trip to Pisa en route back to Nice, France. The bus hostess announced we would have an hour or so to look around, while that was plenty, the tower was more interesting than we had imagined, and is in fact the bell tower of Pisa Cathedral, it in itself a ...