Florence

While my parents were here, we went to Florence for a couple days. Florence is a little under a 2 hour train ride from Rome, so it really wasn't bad at all to get to. We arrived in Florence on Thursday, March 6th in the afternoon. We had an awesome hotel about 2 blocks from the Duomo, and it was a nice change from the hostels I've been staying in here. We walked around a bit for the first day, but it was raining and windy, essentially raining sideways, so we decided to avoid the weather for a bit. On Friday morning we had a private guided tour by a guide named Elvio, who my dad had heard about through a friend of his. Elvio was an amazing tour guide. He lead us through all of Florence on a walking tour of buildings, museums, and the city, which you can tell he really loves. He first explained ot us where we were staying and the history being the piazza in front of our hotel. We stayed very close to the Academia, so we walked there first to see Michelangelo's "David", which was an amazing thing to get to see. I had never realized that it was 17 feet tall, and had such spectacular detail work. it really is hard to believe. from there, we went to the Duomo and the Ponte Vecchio, which are both awesome. The Duomo is massive, and is amazing to see. There is nothing in the world like the Ponte Vecchio either, and it's just such a cool bridge to be on with all the little shops and history that it has. Elvio took us to a nice place where he works on weekends for lunch, and then we walked over to the Basilica of Santa Croce, which was amazing. In the Basilica is where Michelangelo is buried, and it is filled with tombs throughout the floor, which is absolutely fascinating. We then walked over to our last stop, which was the Uffizi, which houses many works by Michelangelo, Raphael, and many other famous artists. It was an amazing museum to see, and the works that are there are beautiful. That night we found a nice restaurant to eat at, and called it a night early so we could see everything we wanted to still see the next day. On Saturday we woke up early and climbed to the top of the Cupola on the Duomo, which gave us an amazing view of the city. Florence is surrounded by hills on three sides, and from the top of the Cupola, you can really see what makes Florence so beautiful. We did a lot of shopping since Florence is known for it's amazing leather and gold, and all of us found something leather to get. The leather is perfect, and really makes you realize how bad the stuff is we have back at home. We had a great meal at night, after stumbling upon an open air market full of leather and cashmere, all of high quality for low prices. On Sunday we returned back to Rome, which even for my parents became like coming home. It was a great place to visit, and the history is just as amazing as Rome's. On Thursday I'm going to Venice overnight, so I'll make sure to let everyone know how it is. I hope all is well back at home, and I'll update everyone again soon.

~Mike