Grand European Adventure: Florence, Italy

We arrived in Florence at about 11:30 AM on March 21st. We quickly made our way to the hostel (very short walk from the train station- but really, nothing in central Florence took a long time to get to). Suprisingly enough, the hostel we were staying in just opened the day before we got there. Downside to this: a lot of their amenities were not up and running (but it will be an awesome hostel when they are ready- they have a sauna!). Upside to this: we were the first peple to sleep in the beds, use the sheets, use the bathroom, etc, which made me very happy. After the hostel in Rome with its dubious cleanliness and serious lack of space, the brand new, large hostel, was a welcome sight. We couldn't check in until 3:00 PM, so we dropped off our stuff and headed out exploring. We found this bakery, Sabrina, on our way to the Duomo which played a key part in our Florentine culinary adventures. We circled around the streets and then ducked into a place for lunch and to sit until 3 because it was raining (sadly, a repetitive theme throughout the trip). We checked in, took a nap, got up, found dinner (I tried Florentine bread soup- really good!), wandered a bit more but made it back to the hostel relatively early because of the crappy weather.

On Saturday, we woke up early so we wouldn't have to wait terribly long to get into the Accademia to see David. We were lucky and only had to wait like 10 minutes to get inside the museum. Wandering through it, we eventually got to the long hallway with Michelangelo's Prisoners and culminating at the end with David. When Matt and I turned the corner, we just kind of stopped in awe. I guess I didn't really realize how large the statue actually was, but its huge! And incredibly beautiful and amazing. I spent a long time just admiring it. We went through the rest of the museum, but it wasn't super exciting except for David. But he was worth it. When we left the museum, it was, surprise, sunny, so we decided to look around the city and actually take pictures. We also went through the central market where I picked up some souveniers. Before lunch we went to the hostel to find Steve (we lost him in the musem and he went back to the hostel to rest his knee), and decided on a delicious lunch of bread, cheese and fruite. We picked up the bread from Sabrina (like I said, large part of our life) and the cheese from this little deli with a great guy who let us try differetn cheeses and made suggestions about what to get. So we got our provisions and sat in a park to have our picnic. It could have been a little warmer, but it was still a fantastic life choice. After lunch we walked down to Ponte Vecchio, looked at the Science Museum (not my cup of tee, but Matt's a nerd and wanted to go; it had Galileo's telescope, so I guess it was kind of okay), wandered around, got dinner after a nap and eventually took some night pictures of the Duomo, some Piazzas and the river Arno and headed back to the hostel around midnight,

On Easter Sunday, we got up arond 8 and headed down to the Duomo at 9. We had originally wanted to go to Easter services at the cathedral, but we noticed a large amount of people gathering to watch the cart explode, and since we couldn't really figure out how to get into the church (the entrance for services was actually on the side of the nave instead of the back) so we decided to instead wait around for the explosion, theoretically happening at 11 AM. At about 9:30, we heard music in the streets. I guess around 9, a procession begins in the city to bring the cart, pulled by 4, decked out white oxen into the square. The procession included drummers, flag twirlers and other such spectacle, all to entertained the masses while we waited for the cart to be set up. The cart doesn't actually explode but rather a ton of fireworks get set up around and on the cart and are set off. Throughout the procession and set up, some religious people also came out from the church and did some holy stuff. At 11, a rocket-type thing came shooting off from the inside of the chuch, setting off the entire spectacle. The fireworks were all connected in a domino kind of way and were AMAZING! Absolutely incredible. They probably went off continuously for fifteen minutes and were seriously worth the 2 hour wait to have a good view. At the end, they handed out hard boiled eggs and olive brances to people in the crowd. We got an egg and it made me feel very Eastery. Just as the event was over, it started to rain so we grabbed lunch (bread, from Sabrina of course, and cheese again), headed back to the hostel to enjoy our feast and take a nap. At 3:300, we got up and headed to the train station to get tickets to Venice. In all honestly, we would rather pay the extra 10 euro to get a fast, direct train than be cheap and get the crappy ones that we have to change. After we got our tickets on the comfy train, we were going to take advantage of the lack of rain and go across the river to Piazzale Michelangelo, but on the way, we discovered that there was Vespers at 5:30, and Mass at 6:00 at the Duomo, so we decided to check that out instead. I'm not super religious but it was an Italian Mass, on Easter, in the Duomo, in Florence, so why not. I couldn't understand a word of it (well, maybe a word) but it was beautiful none-the-less. Mostly because of the setting. After services, we found dinner- had a great pizza but had to deal with a gruff, kind of rude waiter, and headed back to the hostle early, probably around 9. The boys went to play pool while I reorganized my life (and by my life, I mean my bag). We woke up at about 7 in the morning, grabbed one last Florentine pastry and got on the train to Venice!

Reflection on Florence: All different kinds of wonderful. I think I liked it more than Rome, but it's kind of a toss up. Rome had more sights and things to do, but Florence was so much less hectic and not as frustrating (it was so much easier to navigate the streets! We didn't even really need a map after the first day). It was a beautiful city to stoll around, it did have a lot of historical sights, and we felt very comfortable/at home there. Really, the only downside, in my opinion, was the lack of sunshine and warm weather.