Late Blog on the Trip to Florence

I am sorry that I have not blogged in a while. I have been a bit lazy and tired. After having been here a month, I didn’t feel that I had that much to talk about (not to mention that time I actually go to write a blog the internet doesn’t work). Anywho, here is a recount of the trip to Florence along with a few other tid-bits.

Joe, Anne, Candace and I all traveled to Florence toegether. Our adventure began at 5:45am Friday morning last week when we woke up in order to catch the first bus to the train station. Luckily for us, the bus stop was only a block away from our apartment (a bit of a walk for Joe) and we arrived at the station with enough time to buy food and board our train. I do not tend to do so well on trains, so I lay my head down and slept the whole way there, which wasn’t that hard considering the early hour that we had arisen. When we arrived it was overcast but thankfully not raining. We walked about 25 minutes from the station to our hostel. It wasn’t a bad place to stay, but the bathroom floor was covered in water from people splashing it out of the low shower.

That first day we locked our belongings in the room and wandered down to the Uffizi gallery and spent a good 5 hours looking at a gazzilion paintings, sculptures, and items that I had learned about in my Renaissance art history class. I have to say that it was stunning to see the Birth of Venus and Primavera in real life, but the best for me were the old golden altar pieces by Massacio and other pre-renaissance painters. Its nicer to have Primavera on a poster, but the 12 foot tall figures sitting on golden thrones. Unfortunately I do not have any pictures that I can put in here as there were no photographs allowed. The only ones I managed to take were from behind unsuspecting tourists who I used as a shield against the guards.

After so many hours in the museum we found a gelateria, obtained some sustenance, and went back to our little room. We then crashed and took a two hour nap. Just below our place and across the street was a cute little pizzeria. Earlier in the day I had seen a poster for a dance show choreographed by a man from the New York Ballet, so we got tickets and went after the pizza. The show was pretty darn good, but at the end the kept bowing, and being sent forward to bow. Three, even four times would have been fine, but it was something in the range of ten times and eventually they closed the curtain on the dancers. There was no standing ovation as the show wasn’t spectacular, but being from New York I assume he was used to American’s loving any show they can afford to see, and expected a standing ovation from the Italians. After the show we went to sleep in our hostel, but had a very hard time falling asleep due to the bar below our place that had a party going till about 4am.

When we woke on Saturday we were all tired but we got up and went to see the gigantic statue of David. He was incredible, standing 14 feet tall and placed on a marble pediment that must have been 8 feet rising form the floor. There wasn’t much else to see in that gallery, so we took our time admiring David. When we finally managed to leave we went and stood in line to climb the Duomo. After about a half an hour we got in started up the stairs. They were small, cramped, and I felt sorry for the man in front of me who had a cane. After something like 460 stairs that more or less went straight up, we came on top to see a magnificent view of Florence with a beautiful golden sky and hundreds of buildings. We stayed up their as long as we could until it became too crowded and made our way down again, which for some reason was much more difficult than going up.

We were supposed to stay another day, but we all flelt overloaded with all the art we had seen and our wallets were hurting after having spent so much money on food. Pizza normally costs something like 1.5 – 3 euros in Rome, but in Florence, it was 6-9. Not wanting to waste any more money or have another terrible nights sleep, we took an evening train back to Rome, and got home at about midnight.

Florence was amazing, but I learned that you really cant do everything on a weekend trip. Its not because it isn’t physically possible, but mainly because you get too darned tired looking at everything. The eyes and brain can really take only so much before you need to go home and think about what you have seen. And, after Florence, I realize how amazing Rome is. Florence is such a touristy place, and the area of Trastevere where Anne and I are living is perfect for study abroad. Time to go and get some lunch, have a good one and I promises I will post another blog soon. Ciao.