Saturday, April 28, 2012

Florence: Where the hell is the Tuscan Sun??

Bonjour my friends!
I am now back in Paris after my two weeks of traveling.  Time certainly flies when you are having fun in Europe.  The next few days will be a bit of a blogging extravaganza so I can get up to date on everything that I've done!  I was writing in my journal every night so I could remember all the wonderful little details of the days.  So here are some pictures of Florence!  Brace yourselves for a massive post!
I took a train from Venice to Florence
 Map of Florence. 
The city is super walkable, nothing is more than 30 minutes on foot.  I walked everywhere to work off my pasta and gelato!

 A brief glimpse of the Tuscan sun in Florence

 The Duomo


 The Baptistery

 Bronze doors of the baptistery
They were designed by Ghiberti in the 1400s.  These are actually replicas, the originals are in a museum.  Still beautiful though!

Limonchello
yum.


 San Lorenzo church and square.
Home to the San Lorenzo Leather markets!  I bought a leather messenger bag.  The leather jackets were beautiful....

 Santa Croce Church.
Florence's version of Westminster Abby

Oh hey it's the Tuscan Sun!!
and my leather bag.


 Piazza della Republica

 Ravioli, and toasted Tuscan bread with garlic and olive oil.  After our meal, we had complimentary shots of limonchello! 

GELATO


 View of the Duomo from the top of our hostel

 Dante's house

 Inside the Florentine Parliament
No more Tuscan sun...

Outside the Parliament building, doing my best David impression


 The Parliament

 The Gucci Museum
The Fashion House of Gucci started in Florence

 Vintage Gucci Suitcases
Classy!
Sadly that phrase is not true for students.....

 Inside the Santa Croce Church


Tomb of Machiavelli

 Tomb of Dante

 Tomb of Michelangelo

 Tomb of Galileo

Sculpture by Raphael
 What up Florence!

 Outside the Uffizi Gallery
No pictures are allowed inside, but the art is simply breathtaking!  The Birth of Venus by Botticelli was stunning.  The art is so much better in person than it is in books.  The Uffizi is mostly a collection of paintings and sculpture from the Medici family, the ruling family in Florence.  Also, I have never seen so many paintings of Madonna and Child as I have in Florence...

 View from the Uffizi Gallery

 Courtyard of the Uffizi

 Ponte Vecchio
The bridge is filled with jewelry stores!
 View from the bridge

 Palazzo Pitti
Palace of the Medici Family

 Fun fountain in the gardens of the Plazzo
"please, I'm on a turtle"

 Fountain in a cave at the Palace

 More Fountains!

 Even more fountains!
I really like the statue of the kid swimming in the left corner...

 MORE GELATO

 Inside Gelateria Santa Trinta
This time I got strawberry and Santa Trinta (Marscapone and chocolate)
In case you couldn't tell, I LOVE GELATO

 Michelangelo's house

 Salvatore Ferragamo Museum
This fashion house was also founded in Florence!  Salvatore started as a shoemaker and then later expanded into clothing.  The museum was really interesting, it had exhibits of shoes worn by fameous people, and shoes used in movies.

 Ferragamo's shoe sizes of Rita Hayworth, Sofia Loren,
Marlene Dietrich, Katherine Hepburn, and Ingrid Bergman

 The tired tourist!

 We had dinner at our last night in Florence at a Mozzarella Bar.  Ariel and I met up with some friends that she met at a hostel in Milan and we ordered a tasting of mozzarella.  My favorite was the "medium" strength mozzarella, not to mild, but not as intense as the smoked kind.  DELICIOUSO


And that sums up Florence! Although I don't know if you could ever really "sum up" Florence.  I really liked the city and I would like to go back to explore more of Tuscany, and to go to the Bargello Sculpture Museum.  Our first week in Italy was "Culture Week" so all the national museums were free!! Fantastico!!  Next post will be about our half day in Siena!

Ciao,
Allison



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