A Week Spent in Florence

Tuesday was my very first day in Florence and I had no idea what to expect from Tuscany, but it is clear that Florence is the heart of Italian culture. In one day Erin and I were able to visit 75% of the touristy spots like…

Saint Lorenzo,

Palazzo Medici Riccardi,

Santa Maria Novella,

Saint Frediano in Cestello,

(I love the truck. I think it really adds something to the church...)

The Ponte De Vecchio

(The smallest car I have ever seen. It seats one person and has three wheels. I saw this right before we crossed over the river, where there were others!)

Giardino di Boboli,

(This guy was a stud. I had to get a photo with him.)

Palazzo Pitti

(Inside the palace there were special exhibits. The ones we had entrance to were fashion throughout time, jewelry and Egyptian history and wine making. Its really hard to sneak photos in Florence, but I got a few inside the palace exhibits. muhaha.)

For dinner we went to an Italian restaurant near our hotel and split a pesto pasta dish, so good. From there we were going to go see Kinsella and Matt play in a bar downtown, but we were exhausted from our recent travels, so we stayed in. We still have plenty of nights left in Florence so I am not worried!

Wednesday

This was supposed to be another tour filled day and it did start out that way. We started by going to the other bold buildings on our map, but there was nothing really to see. Either we had to pay a lot of money to go into random art exhibits or the buildings were not that pretty, so we started wandering towards Ponte Vecchio when I happened to see Matt Castanho on the street. I had no idea that he was studying abroad in Florence and I literally stopped, pointed and shouted his name, while confusing Erin beyond belief because she thought that I was pointing at some building. As an English major, I should really be able to use my words better to communicate, but such is life. Matt was great and he invited us to his apartment down the street where we met his roommates and group of friends in Florence. Needless to say my super power is being connected to everyone…here it goes

1) Matt Castahno

2) His roommate Chris (I’m friends with leanne who is friends with his girlfriend Cat)

3) Cat (she was also in Florence for the semester)

4) Anne Hartman (Kate Hartman is her older sister and is GSS with me at Delaware)

5) Cat and Chris’s friend Sarah is studying abroad in Paris and she lives down the street from me ( I hope we do get to meet up for coffee soon in le marais!)

6) Steven, Matt’s roommate, knows the lacrosse boys from Avon Old Farms that I lived with freshmen year

7) The rest of south Windsor high school including, Kinsella, Matt, Langer, Mondy and Erica Misenti.

Needless to say South Windsor High School was dominating Florence during this week!

Anyways, Steven and Matt took Erin and I to get the cheapest, yet most delicious gelati that I had ever had, but the great place was where we ate it. We hopped over the wall and climbed down to the river to eat our gelati on the river dam in the center of Florence. This was such a fun afternoon and Erin and I got some great advice about Florence. For instance, we went to kitsch for dinner. It’s a bar where you pay 8 euros for a drink and then there’s a buffet. Erin and I enjoyed the music and the atmosphere of the place more than the food, which was like eating a chili pepper, but the drinks were just what we wanted. I’d say that Wednesday was a pretty amazing day and Florence only got better as the week went on.

Thursday

This was our museum day. We started out at the Gallery of the Academy to see Michaelangelo’s The David. Although, you cannot take pictures inside the gallery, I am a master and now have a photograph of the original David. He was HUGE!

Our next stop was The Uffizi, which we spent almost two hours in line waiting for and an hour and a half inside. I found some of my favorite paintings in here, but overall it could not compare to the Louvre. We went and saw what you have to see in your life.

(The one and only picture I was able to take inside the museum.)

(We copied the married coupled next to us and got ourselves a photo on top of the Uffizi.)

After this we made our way to Michaelangelo’s Plaza to get one of the best views of the city. We got a little lost, but that can never be a bad thing. It just meant we got another view of the city at sunset. Need I say gorgeous!

As always, it was then time for dinner, so Erin and I tried the group’s favorite pizza place, Gusta Pizza.

(Thanks UCONN! I miss them already. I wish they were in Paris with me!)

We then met up with Matt, his roommates and the girls at their apartment for a night of wine and asshole and then a casual dash to the bar down the street. It was a lot of fun and it was so nice just to casually hang out.

(All of us who went out to dinner!)

Friday

This was a leather market day. Erin and I spent three hours exploring the leather market down the street from us. Italian leather is art, that is for sure. I wasn’t completely suckered into buying unnecessary pieces, but I did splurge on the best boots ever made and a journal. They are nice mementos of my time spent here, not to mention the boots are hot! All the Spanish ladies surrounding me agreed when I tried them on. It was hilarious.

(My favorite leather market.)

From there, Erin and I met up with the group to go out for dinner. We enjoyed our supposed last night with the group in Florence and were bummed to say goodbye to them at 5am in the morning after our night of pasta, wine and asshole. It was a great night well spent.

Saturday

This is what I like to call the day from hell. Erin’s debit card number had been stolen in Rome, so we could not withdraw any money to pay for our hotel or to pay for the rest of our trip. We literally thought that we were stranded in Florence, but everything did work out, thanks to Chris and his roommates. They let us crash at their place all of Saturday. They took us to the market, where we bought stuff for dinner and after amending Erin’s bank situation we played cards, broke out a bottle of wine and had a dinner party. A little later on the girls arrived and we thought it was brilliant to watch Anchorman and to drink everytime they say Ron Burgandy, Ron or Mr. Burgandy. I was destroyed, needless to say because they say his name a ridiculous amount in that movie! On the bright side, I stuck to tradition and drank on Halloween, although I was wearing pajamas the whole time instead of a costume, but that counts right?

(Gin shots in an expresso cup...)

(Thank you, Ron Burgandy.)

Sunday

Seven Regional trains to Nice, where we arrived 5 minutes after our train to Aix-en-Provence, so we got a sleeper train and headed to Paris. In total I spent exactly 24 hours on trains traveling from Florence to Paris. Quel horreur!