2 Days in Florence

  Florence, Tuscany, Italy
Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Me and Alex in front of the Duomo

I absolutely LOVED our time in Florence.  We arrived by train on the morning of the 3rd, and checked out our hotel.  The location was fantastic - right in the middle of everything.  We could see the Duomo from our room!  We walked around on our first day, and just enjoyed the sights.  I was really happy to see streets of Italy that looked like the streets I was expecting. (As opposed to Naples, where streets were dark alleys)

We spent our first day doing the two major museums.  Galleria dell' Academia was first.  Its very small!  But it was well worth it to see David in person.  I am not an art lover by any means, but I was so impressed with David!  When we walked into the wing where we could see it from afar, I couldn't pay attention to anything and just made my way over to him.  I've never been so drawn to a piece of art.

We did the Uffizi next.  Fortunately we were there during the off season, and there really weren't too many people to push through to see everything.  There was sooo much there, so Alex and I decided to follow our tour book and only really stopped and looked at the famous pieces... Like I said, I'm no art lover.  It was cool to see the Birth of Venus and some other paintings that I learned about in my Greek and Roman class, but overall I was happy to be with someone else who didn't care to linger too much.

Florence from the sky

The next day we had an iPod on hand, and we listened to some sound guides at each of the main attractions.  We were in the Piazza della Signoria, went to the Ponte Vecchio (old bridge), and of course the Duomo.  We climbed the bell tower and saw the city from up high - a beautiful view.  We did everything we wanted to with plenty of time to spare.

I guess that is what I really liked about Florence.  Everything was within a small enough area to see and do everything you want with plenty of time to relax and linger.  We stopped for gelato, had a long lunch, did some shopping, and just walked through the city, exploring and talking.  It was really relaxing, really nice, and seemed very European to me. 

DUFF

There were also a lot of Americans around.  We spotted two large groups of American girls, studying there.  Had I known Florence was so cool, I probably would have tried to do the same!  All of the people studying there probably explains why an old Italian man started speaking Italian to me.  I think its pretty obvious that I'm not Italian (is there ANYWHERE I can go to and look local??) and when we bumped into each other he smiled and started speaking Italian.  When I told him I didn't understand he said something that sounded like "only a tourist..."  Now I wish I knew Italian though, I've fallen in love with Florence and would love to live there!