Florence--December 28-29, 2006

Thursday, December 28th
We had another interesting time finding our hostel in Florence. After nearly getting killed multiple times just driving into Florence (a traffic hell to start with) and not having a city-specific map, we parked the car while our saviour Aaron found some street names. He came back and we found one road on our little map. We drove in the direction of our hostel, or so we thought, according to Hostelworld.com’s map.

We decided to park the car and walk to the hostel. We walked in the direction of the hostel on our map, but we could not find the road or the hostel ANYWHERE. After asking for directions several times, we met some guys who were willing to help out a group of Americans. They pointed in the direction we needed to go. We got to a large round-about with 6 different streets we could choose. Aaron and Steve found a street map and were able to find one of the streets that corresponded to our “Mappy” (Europe’s version of Mapquest).

Long story short, we found our hostel and it ended up being closer than the 30 minute wait -for-the-train-to-pass, hike –up-a-hill, hike-down-a-hill way we went.

After unloading our bags, we went on a brief walking tour of Florence. First stop, the Duomo.

LEFT: The main entrance. CENTER: Campanile or bell town. RIGHT: The nave.
We went inside. The beauty of this 14th Century church is on the outside, not the inside. However, the grandeur of the building itself was impressive to the eye.


From the Duomo, we walked to the Medici palace. This is where the famous Medici Family ruled in Florence during the Renaissance period. Not only were the Medici the political authority, they were Florence's chief cultural influence They were the family that commissioned Michelangelo and other famous Renaissance artists to decorate their palace.





A short walk from the Medici palace is the famous Ponte Vecchio, the only bridge remaining from World War II. The bridge houses nothing but jewelry shops, mostly gold shops. And current structure was built in 1354. Absolutely amazing.





From the bridge, we walked back through town, through the Piazza della Republica to the Duomo where we found a quaint Italian restaurant to have dinner. We needed a hearty meal to energize us for the following day.





Friday, December 29th

First stop, the Galleria dell Accademia. After waiting in line for about an hour, we entered the museum and there he was standing under the copula - pensive yet poised, youthful but triumphant, large and nekked - The David. There were also other works by Michelangelo including unfinished sculptures of Tomb of Pope Julius II. For more information about Michelangelo, click HERE.




Second stop, Piazza Le Michelangelo. We crossed through town, walked over the bridge and hiked up the hill to beautiful park that overlooks the Florence cityscape.
After a hardy climb, the four of us got a bite to eat. We had the BEST pizza EVER. It was a pizza familla, which is like American-sized pizza, with black olives, sausage (or hotdogs), peppers, tomatoes, mozzarella, etc with Moretti’s to wash it down. What a meal.

With food in our bellies we had the energy to see it all. Next on the list was Basilica di Santa Croce (Basilica of the Holy Cross, although the Schwartz boys kept mentioning Leroy Brown? ) a church that houses famous tombs and illustrations. After a day full of art, Aaron earned himself a little math, and in the case of Galileo, a chance to sing Queen in an inappropriate place. Here are just a few famous tombs.
LEFT: Galileo’s tomb. CENTER: Dante’s Tomb. RIGHT: Michelangelo’s Tomb.
Others include: Eugenio Barsanti (co-inventor of the internal combustion engine), Niccolò Machiavelli, Lorenzo Ghiberti (Renaissance artist) and Leon Battista Alberti (15th century architect and artistic theorist).

More on Santa Croce, click HERE

Having seen enough religious artwork for the day, we ventured through the famous Florence Markets in search of Aaron’s "special" outfit for New Years. More on that in the New Years Eve Post.

Our last memory of the city—the four of us sitting on the front steps of the Duomo sipping cheap red wine out of the bottle and eating chips.

“Duomo arrigato..Mister Roboto”. Ah, Florence.

And with that, we woke the next morning and started our journey to the French Riviera.