Florence

Hello!

Sorry this has been taking so long, my school work has picked up a little bit since we're nearing the end of the semester. On the second part of out Italian adventure, we went to Florence. Unlike Rome, I was pleasantly surprised. I think Florence was probably my favorite place that we went to as a whole. The only thing I knew about Florence is that we would be staying at a nice hostel because someone I know who had stayed their previously said it was the best hostel they had stayed at. And it was really nice. Definitely up there in hostels we have stayed at.

Courtyard

Another

Again

Pretty hostel

Some more

We took the train from Rome and got there around lunch time. After dropping our stuff off at the hostel, we headed out in search of lunch. We chose a little restaurant near our hostel. It was delicious. I had pasta with truffle sauce (something I would normally never try but I decided to be adventurous). It actually turned out to be pretty good. Not my favorite dish, but still up there in quality. We went back to the hostel to have a little break before heading out for the day.

Noodles with truffle sauce

Of course we had to stop for some yummy gelato first thing. After that we decided we would just walk around. We wanted to try to knock some of the stuff out of the way, but a lot of them were closed since we had such a late start. But it was nice to just walk around and take in Florence. We ended up walking down to a famous bridge and hanging around there for awhile. On our way back to the hostel we went and saw the David statue (or what we thought was the David Statue). Turns out it was the fake version but we were impressed nonetheless. After all of this walking around, we meandered back to hostel for some dinner. After dinner, we all hung out in our hostel and played cards as we talked before going to bed.

Gelato+ Meg, Steph, Meg, Mike

Meg and her serenading Italian lover

Medicee church

Anna Maria church?

Plaza

Roomies

Bridge

Favid (fake David)

The next morning, we got up for breakfast before heading out on a free tour. The hostel had two different types of tours that alternates each day. Lucky for us, we got the less commonly seen things tour (it was called the blue tour but I like my name better haha). It was nice to see the things that people don't generally seek out or know about. Our tour guide was okay but she wasn't overly exciting or fun. But hey, a free tour is a free tour and it was still cool. After that, we headed on our own little tour.

First stop was the Duomo, which is this super awesome, really cool looking church. I have seen a lot of churches in Europe, but the outside of this one is definitely my favorite. The inside was similar to all of the others, but it was really fun anyway. After that, we went to this little market area that they have every day. It was really fun and we all bought a lot of things. Looking back now, I wish I had bought something for myself, but I got a lot of gift shopping done there, so I am happy about that. After that, a few of us rested before heading out again.

First bar in Florence

"Chain" bridge

Pear and strawberry gelato

Cool wine bottles

Black and white building

Kissing the good luck pig

Baptistry 

Duomo

Again

Inside

Altar

Market

We got dinner at a little place by the bridge again. They were really slow on service, but I got gnocchi and it was really good. After that, we headed across the bridge to climb up to the top of a hill that let us see over the city. We got up there when it was dark and it was really cool to see everything lit up. After spending a good amount of time up there, we headed back to get our train tickets before going on one last little adventure before we left Florence.

Gnocchi

Duomo and muesuem

All of Florence

Lights reflecting off the river

Stephanie had heard about this secret bakery in Florence and we all wanted to find it. Supposedly it opened between 12 and 1 am. So we got there around 12 and waited with a few other hopefuls. But after waiting more than an hour with no sign of them opening, we walked dejectedly back to our hostel before we were locked out at 2. We were all sad that the secret bakery never opened, but it was still an experience.

Secret Bakery truck

Although we did walk a lot in Florence as well, it was a lot more relaxing than our Rome experience. But by the time we were headed to Venice, we were all really tired. This is the part of the trip where we started to get a little cranky because none of us were used to traveling for this long of a time. But we still had 4 more days and 2 more cities so we would have to continue on our journey. That's all for now, I will try to get Venice and hopefully Milan done too before I head to Amsterdam this weekend to visit Rob.

Hasta luego,
Ash