Firenze: Day 1-The best weekend so far

Even though this was the third time I have been to Florence it was one of the best experiences. I had the time of my life. Having less than 48 hours to enjoy such an amazing city with so much to offer makes it even that much better. (Granted one of my Florence visits involved only having four hours….long story.)

Our trip began with our drive from Corciano to the Perugia train station. Jen's favorite Italian word was graffited on a train wall so we had to take some pics.

Had a great ride to Florence on the train and practiced my Italian with Bar-bar-a. I am starting to feel really good about my Italian (even though I have a LONG way.) I just feel like I am getting it and picking it up more and more and having so many opportunities to practice.

After arriving in Florence our huge group made rounds from hotel to hotel dropping people off so that Jason could check them in. En route we continued to drool over cute shop after cute with beautiful clothes. So we tried our best to remember the ones we wanted to return to. There was one that we saw that we new we were going back to and while passing it a man from another store yells out to me and said that he liked my hair. (Follow up story coming with the significance of this.) I turned around and said thank you and also noticed that he was in a pretty cool hip store.

One of the nicest was Jen's place which was a convent (the nunnery.) Very beautiful place, but with a curfew….Jen was Cinderalla on lock down but for good reason. Her place was beautiful.

Allison and I arrived at Hotel Cardinal of Florence [passed Dante's house on the way] and met the amazingly nice woman who ran our hotel. It was a quaint place. So quaint that our bathroom WAS our shower. Wish I had pictures. There was basically a drain in the middle of the room next to the toilet and the bidet with a shower head sticking out of the wall across from the sink. But our room was HUGE with a double bed, a single bed and sitting area.

Then we enjoyed some wine and chit chat with Carolyn and later Brandon in our room before heading to the Uffizi museum in Piazza Della Signora.

We spent a few hours there looking at all the beautiful art work like the Flemish drawings, the religious frescos and paintings, statues and busts, some Caravaggio and some new artists I discovered. (PICS = The fake David outside of the museum and Allison & Brandon. Views of the Ponte Vechio from the museum and the clock tower at the top of the museum.)

There were a few bronze sculputures that were covered by dark sheets to protect them from the lights. I thought this was odd but the black sheet added an interesting effect, so much so that I snuck a picture of one of them. The most amazing part for me was seeing The Birth of Venus by Botticelli. I still can't get over the shock and awe that I continue to have when I finally see in person paintings that I have heard about and studied.

Afterwards we headed to Zecchi's Art store on via dello Studio…awesome art store with so many supplies. I wanted to buy everything, but I just bought one brush, a journal, pen, and some small (cheap) scraps of primed linen (to create a masterpiece :)

After the art store some of us went on a search for gelato and ended up at Museo della Chiesa Di San Marco. We only went into the church and it was beautiful with a lot of wonderful art and an actual body of a bishop.

Afterwards we cooled off at a bar with some beer and " piatto" = plate. I found out that this is the name for the little snacks that Italians have with there beverages at a bar. (The bartender kept giving me a hard time when I was trying to learn the correct words ...it was funny.)

(Is that my name??? :)

We then went to Mercato Centrale (huge market place with booths of things to buy) to do some shopping before meeting up with some people at Za Za's.

After pizza at Za Za's we went for gelato at a very popular gelateria called Vivoli la Latteria. I didn't get any but Allison and I made plans to go back the next day to eat gelato for lunch and we did.

After gelato Allison, Jen and I went on our own to find Piazza S. Spirito which was supposed to be a hip area. En route, we find a cute bar with live music and people sitting outside (on the ground) drinking their beverages. So we got a bottle of wine and went outside and plopped down next to some Italians with a dog (Rosa) that we eventually talked too with our poor Italian.

Around 11 pm we had to get Jen back to the nunnery for her lockdown. We almost convinced her to jump ship and stay out with us and crash at our place. But she was a good girl and stayed in the nunnery. (Check out those locks on the inside of the nunnery door. They REALLY don't want anyone to leave :)

Allison and I on the other hand, went out on the town and had a great time. We went to a bar in the Piazza Del Carmine and met some really cool people. It was so interesting to see how the Italians party and how they were towards the two only American's for miles. We had some great conversations and laughs. I learned that for Italians in school it is not cool to learn English. It makes sense because the majority of Italians I have met, studied French in school and not English. It works out well for me. At various points in the night I was speaking "Enitalench" (Sentences with a mix of English, Italian and French :)

Later we stumbled home and ended up meeting two young Australian guys and one young South African guy on one of the bridges over Fiume Arno (the Arno River.) We sat on the Ponte Alla Carraia laughing and talking about life for almost two hours and finally took some pics and then parted ways.