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| piazza michael angelo |
One overnight train later we were in Florence! It turns out that on the Italian owned overnight trains, 1st class is actually three to a room and 2nd class is SIX to a room – definitely not as nice as the French overnight train. Our room ended up just being just the two of us (thank god), but walking by 2nd class was absolutely nuts. There were no beds, just two-foot wide benches that folded down from the walls. No sheets, no pillow, nothing. THANK YOU MAN IN PARIS WHO GOT US INTO 1ST CLASS!
Our luck continued when we got to our hostel and it was not only wonderful, but the woman decided she especially liked us and let us know she would not be putting anyone else in our four person dorm. YAY J We spent three nights in a huge room with all of our stuff spread out everywhere… ahh.
As for the city of Florence, it was incredible. There was no metro so we walked everywhere. On the first day we were wandering around trying to find something, turned a corner, and ended up face to face with the HUGE Duomo smack dab in the middle of gelato shops, restaurants, and tabacchi. It was so crazy to us that there are no gates and no grounds, we had lunch at the base of the Duomo and later enjoyed gelato sitting on the stairs J
I came with a plan to eat everything in Europe, to be gluttonous, eat, drink, and be merry… Unfortunately I think gluttony has taken on a new meaning for Tommy and I since landing in Italy - a meaning only to be unlocked by pizza, pasta, bruschetta, gelato, and a liter of wine at every meal. Just to put things in perspective, a bottle of wine is .75 of a liter. And we are constantly finding ourselves in bar on the way home from dinner for a glass (or two) more. Tommy, once a self-proclaimed hater of “rotten grapes”, truly is drinking his way through Italy… and I LOVE IT.
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| "no pictures" whelp, sorry but im DEFINITELY taking one |
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| gelato stop number 85. stracitella and banana chocolate. pleaseeee. |
Aside from the wine and stumbling into whichever restaurant is the most packed to have the most delicious meal of our lives (so far), we really did see a lot of beautiful things in Firenze. The Duomo and the Ponte Vecchio were fantastic. At Piti Palace we made our way through the Boboli Gardens where we found an incredible sight of the city, a great place to take a nap, and a great place to make a crown out of flowers J Another beautiful sight, a little higher up, was the Piazza Michael Angelo. We took a bus up and up through huge houses flanked with jungle to find a beautiful piazza with the most breathtaking panorama of all of Florence. It was fantastic to see every part of the city at sunset.
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| relaxing at the boboli gardens |
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| crown :) |
Friday night we started drinking with some people in our hostel and all went out together. We were surprised to find that it was a holiday, white night, where everyone in the city goes out, fills the streets, and parties until the sun comes up. COOL! LUCK NUMBER THREE! The night was full of parades, live music, and drink specials. Although we didn’t stay out quite long enough to catch the sunrise, we had a great time running through the packed streets of Florence; drinks in our hands, smiles on our faces, and new friends in tow. (Sticking with the theme of food, white night we also wound up eating “dirty sandwiches” at about 4:00 am. Kabob meat shaved off like a gyro with all sorts of garlicy delights piled on. Good to know that even in Italy, I can search out the unhealthiest of the drunk munchies. The next morning it looked that birds had shit all over my shoes – when in reality they were covered in garlic yogurt sauce. Oops.)
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| beer in the streets... yea yeaaa |
We went to sleep our last night Florence feeling like we really had soaked up the city.
Tavarnelle de Pisa’s next!
Love and miss you all,
Alyson
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