Firenze aka Florence - Full of Sketchy!

Oh Florence, how we developed a love-hate relationship with you. We arrived into Florence at 11:30pm and had a short walk to our host Emanuele’s apartment. Emanuele and his roommate Valentino were great to let us stay with them, but they are not the type of people that we would make friends with on a regular basis... AND they smoked...inside; so their apartment and all our stuff reeked after a few short minutes of arriving. Emanuele also wanted us to go to a protest with him to help save a Square that the students like to hang out and party in. When asked if we’d get arrested he said “What happens, happens”. Ya, no thank you! Being as though we’d had a long day, both Julie and I really just wanted to go to bed, but we couldn’t do that before meeting Ellie from Alabama. Ellie arrived drunk as a skunk after having aperitivos with a friend, then proceeded to pass out on the couch where I would be sleeping. After two hours of chatting (but not with Ellie for obvious reasons), Emanuele finally put her to bed and let us go to sleep.

Us in front of the Cathedral & Julie eating "Breakfast"

The next morning we woke up bright and early and headed out to view the city. Did I mention that it was another holiday and most things were closed? Well they were. Our first order of business was food. What ended up being breakfast was yogurt, Twinkies, and red bull. Breakfast of champions, I know!

Uffizi Square & Ponte Vecchio

On our walk, however, we encountered the Cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore, The Bell tower of Giotto, the Baptistery, the Golden Doors, the Cathedral, Dante’s house, the Cathedral (at this point we decided that the Cathedral- which isn’t really that impressive in my books, was stalking us), and Signoria Square. This is the part where I’ll admit that even though we both knew that Michelangelo’s David was in a museum, when we saw the outside version we took pictures and thought “is this it?” I know, I know, I’ll let you laugh at us, but just for a moment.

Giardini Boboli

Up and over Ponte Vecchio (a bridge), and then we starting doing what Julie and I do best while traveling…wander. At the point when we thought our wandering had come to a dead end, a security guard convinced us that the park he was guarding was worth the euro that it would cost us to get in (normally this park would set you back 10 euros). So into the Giardini Boboli we go, and let me start by saying this was probably both mine and Julie’s favourite part of Florence…THANK YOU security guard! So we wandered through the gardens for a long time and eventually came out at a museum where there was a nice long lineup of people waiting to get in; if only they’d know to walk a little further and into the park first! Oh well…on we went, into the Cathedral, through Uffizi square, and then we attempted to go and see David. Well being as tho it was a holiday in Italy, the Museo Dell'Accademia (which houses David) was closed for the holiday. So we decided to head up to Piazza Michelangelo, where the views of Florence and the Tuscan region are amazing.

More Giardini Boboli & Rooftop view of Florence

Next it was off to dinner, where we treated ourselves to a 3-course meal complete with dessert and café. The server was in a hurry to get us out of there though, and before you know it we were on the streets again. Not wanting to go home because of our sketchy hosts, we wandered the streets and ended up at…you guessed it, the cathedral. So we took some pictures and then met an Aussie who wanted us to go to a pub crawl he worked for. We agreed that it would keep us out of the apartment longer and headed to the bar where everyone was gathered…and by everyone I mean 5 people. Once our host was gone, we left the bar to go get money and just never returned. We didn’t plan to escape, but we ended up getting distracted by a street performer in Uffizi square, who was giving an impromptu concert. The acoustics in the square were amazing and we ended up watching this guy for a good half hour before we decided it was probably safe to go back to the apartment.

Watching the street performer in Uffizi Square

When we got back, only Valentino was home, as Emanuele had gone to a party in the countryside (and nicely returned at 5am). So, we talked to Valentino (what an Italian name eh? This guy fits the bill of the most stereotypical Italian lover type, you know all hugs and poetry? Not like the Italians in NY, who are more Italian than those in Italy. HAHAHA If you've seen Russell Peters, you understand this joke) for awhile, before he decided to go get gelato and to look at the moon (at midnight til 2am, just gelato and the moon?) and we were able to go to bed. This is probably the point where we decided to officially peace out of Florence first thing in the morning (one day early) after seeing David.

Valentino - told you typical Italian

So up bright and early (we said goodbye to our hosts via a note, being considerate of the fact that they didn't go to bed until 5am and woke us up while doing so) to be one of the first 10 people in line (without tickets) to see the statue. We got in after probably a half hour wait, saw David, snuck a picture ("No Photos") and then headed to the train station for our long ride home; and when I say long, I mean WAY long.

David- the real one!

The regional train back only cost us 12.90 euros, but took 8 hours because we stopped at EVERY stop between La Spezia and Ventimiglia, including 12 stops in Genoa. This also wouldn’t be the last time we took this train (see Cinque Terra post once it's written). On this particular day it was extra torturous given that it was the first really warm beach day of the season and we were stuck on a train watching the beaches of the Italian Riviera pass us by. We made it home safely though, and with plenty of time to relax for a day before heading back to work on Monday.

Would you want to be on a 6 hour train when the weather looks like this?

Oh and I should also mention that we got a phone call from Jon and Ryan at 3am after we got home asking if we could come pick them up because they were walking back from Juan les Pins (23 km away from Nice). The fact that a) we didn’t have a car and b) they thought we were still in Rome, didn’t seem to concern either one of them! Thanks for thinking of us boys!