Florence
Trip Start
Jan 05, 2008
1
47
61
Trip End
Jun 20, 2008
Florence,
Italy
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Well, we were ready to leave Rome in the morning and we had a little and fast surprise while we were still having breakfast. All of the sudden the entire place started to shake. Yes, shake. Jarrett and I experienced our first earthquake. It wasnt major at all, but we felt the entire house shake and we just look at each other with big eyes for seconds. It was so fast that the host of the house was still asleep and he didnt feel anything.
We arrived in Florence, checked in and since it was already late afternoon we just walked around the block and went back to the hotel, since we spent the next two full days in the city.
Day 2
After an abundant breakfast (the best breakfast we have had so far), we left to visit the city, and we fell in love with it. Florence is charming, big but small and still has its medieval feeling thru it. The stone streets are narrow and full of little shops and restaurants everywhere. Our hotel is well located, only a few blocks from the Cathedral di Santa Maria del Fiore, which is the third biggest cathedral in the world (according to our Europe Lets Go book)
Santa Maria del Fiore - Florence
. The building is really impressive for its size and marble detailed facade. Then we walked thru the town, visiting the Plazza de la Republica, the Via dei Calzaiuoli, the oldest street in the city, and the Ponte Vecchio, a bridge full of shops "hanging of the edge" and the National Library. The view from the the river is very pretty but unfortunately it started rainning and it got really cold (you can see in the pics that sunddely we are all bundled up) so we had to quit the tour and find shelter, which ended up being our hotel. Later at night we met with Allegra (Dicksons foreign exchange student in 1992) and her husband for dinner, which was a very enjoyable time. Day 3
Today we visited Siena, a small town at about 1 1/2 hour from Florence. The city is still surrounded by a medieval wall and the interior is full of old stone building and narrow cobblestone streets. It is really neat...hard to describe the full experience but hope you can get an idea from the pics.... definitely it was worth it visiting. The main square is the El Campo which has a museum with a castle like facade and a rectangular fountain. From this city we were able to view the true tuscan view of Italy. Breathtaking scenic landscaping. We had enjoyed our time in the city and when it came time to leave and head back to the train station we were planning on exiting a different gate from the one we entered. We did that only to find out that we couldnt make it to the train station from where we were
Santa Maria del Fiore - Florence
. We asked the question and the lady just rolled her eyes and pointed to the other side of the city. We only had about 40 minutes to make it back to the staion which was at least 25 minutes from the gate we entered thru. After some faced paced walking, pushing thru crowds and saying excuse me a bunch of times, which I am sure some poeple had no idea what we said, we made it to the train station with a few minutes to spare. Day 4
The last day in Florence was again a rainy one, but since we visited most of the city on the days before, we decided to go to the Piazza de Michaelangelo where you can have a panoramic view of the city, and even under the rain it was well worth it. The view was magnificent and we were so lucky that when we arrived at the top the rain stopped and the sun started shinning. It was really pretty. From there we continued walking up towards the Belvedere Fort which also gives you a panoramic view of the city. From there we saw that a huge gray cloud was coming towards the city so we rushed down to avoid walking all the way back under more rain. We caught our train today to go to Vienna, Austria.
