Italy Diary Part Two - Florence

Part One - Part Three

After four days in Rome it was time to embark on the the second part of our trip-- Florence! We boarded the train in the morning and were in Florence by noon. This part of the trip held the most expectations for me personally because I may potentially study abroad here and everyone kept reiterating how I would love it because of all the art. They definitely weren't wrong-- I felt as though everywhere we went there was art to be found.

Our first lunch was at a place called the Mercato Centrale, a beautiful indoor marketplace with fresh produce on the first floor and an amazing array of all kinds of food to order and eat on the second floor. After than, we made our way over to the Galleria dell'Accademia.
I personally adore everything about the Statue of David, as overrated as it is. There's something about the way it depicts perfect, idealized beauty and the way your eye moves through the piece that is truly just...something. The faceted walls in the alcove were begging for interesting compositions, and the light coming from the skylight was doing great things with the shadows and tones of the statue. Therefore, I had a little photoshoot with him. Thanks for being the perfect model, David.

The statue is much bigger than I thought it would be- it's seventeen feet tall, more than three times my height. From all the pictures I've seen, I always thought it was life size. But look at the muscle contouring and little divots in his skin and the veins that run up from his fingers to his arm! Made from a block of marble!! He looked practically alive. These things baffle me.

After the Accademia, we walked down past the cathedral and duomo where I saw Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise that I studied in art history. Next was Piazza della Repubblica with its adorable carousel. On one street, we found artists creating beautiful sidewalk art of old masterpieces.

At this point I wrote in the notes on my phone where I was keeping a little diary about our trip: "I think what so far has been Florence so special is that I can't help but want to stop everywhere and look at things". In retrospect, I think I was completely accurate. We went to Piazza della Signoria with its outdoor sculpture gallery and saw a hilarious mime, a proposal, and a wedding shoot happening at the same time. All with beautiful pieces of art as a backdrop. What a dream.

Finally we made our way down to our destination near Ponte Vecchio. That day was San Giovanni's day in Florence, or a celebration of the feast day of its patron saint St. John the Baptist. Basically, there would be a fireworks show set off across the river.

The next day started at the Uffizi museum, which has a spectacular set of Renaissance artwork. The museum wasn't as extravagant as the Louvre or Vatican, but i still loved seeing pieces of art I extensively studied (Titian's Venus of Urbino, Caravaggio's Head of Medusa, Boticelli's Primavera and Birth of Venus)!!

At the end of our visit in the gift shop, I randomly opened a book about art history and you can imagine my astonishment when I read the review on the first page and saw it was written by my freshman advisor. Coincidences are very cool.

After the Uffizi, we got lunch at a restaurant in the Piazza Della Signoria where I had an incredible Florentine pizza. Across from me, my brother was eating Florentine steak. Man, just looking at these photos makes me crave the food.

Thank goodness we refueled when we did because the next part of our day was about to be the most tiring part of our trip. We heard that climbing Giotto's Bell Tower would offer an incredible view of the city, and we weren't disappointed. However, it was 414 steps up in tiny winding stairwells smushed against people coming both up and down. A lot of sweating happened, but the view was absolutely incomparable.

I have no photos from dinner, but it one of my favorite meals. The restaurant was called ZaZa and we sat outside in their beautiful seating area. Some of the highlights were the spaghetti carbonara with truffle oil, florentine veal and beef, stuffed bell peppers with olives, and all with a rosé wine. And for dessert...all I remember is this sort of cream/pudding/magic with fresh strawberries. I actually licked the bowl clean.

Like I said in my previous blog post, dinner in Italy is a long affair and for us Americans the strangest part was adjusting to the number of courses and slower service. This night we decided to thoroughly enjoy our dinner after an exhausting day, and managed to stay for two hours. By the time we were done, we were ready to see some more.

The sun was setting so we walked down to Ponte Vecchio. To this day, I am so thankful for the spectacular luck that brought us there that day and at that time. When we came out of the street and onto the bridge, the river and horizon came into view and along with it the most spectacular sunset I had ever seen. Maybe it was something about the the formation of the clouds, or the fact that I had just eaten the most spectacular dinner, or that we were in Italy for heavens sake. All I know is that one of my favorite moments of the trip was here, leaning against the bridge and looking out on the water at the sunset, listening to a singing guitar-piano duo played in the background and realizing that no moment could ever compare.

Our last day in Florence wasn't technically in Florence- we finally took a break of sorts and went with a tour group for a day trip in Tuscany. This meant it was a massive break for me because it was up to someone else to lead us places and time everything and accidentally trip because they are too busy looking at Google Maps on their phone to pay attention to where they was going (I did this many times). Whew. We got on a massive bus in the morning and one of my favorite parts was simply the ride through the countryside because of the gorgeous sights. The rolling hills were filled with vineyards and sunflower fields, all lined up in precise rows. The mountains and clouds took up the distance and skinny needle-like cypress trees divided land.
Our first stop was a town called Siena. It was a very unique medieval town divided into 17 neighborhoods named after animals, and all competed against each other in a horse race called the Palio. It was incredibly bizarre but also very cool. The Duomo that we visited was gorgeous, especially the mosaic and tiled floors.

Next was lunch on an organic farm in a tiny village. We got a tour of their wine cellar, vineyard, and these really cool white cows called the Chianina that is apparently one of the oldest cow breeds in the world.

And, of course, the lunch part was incredible. All of the ingredients were fresh and grown either on the farm or was locally bought. Also, there was wine tasting and I had my first taste of dessert wine (which was very, very strong).

The second town was San Gimignano, entirely situated on a hill and filled with towers. We ate award winning gelato (all together we got rosemary, lavender, grapefruit & champagne, and saffron which are only several examples of the flavor varieties) and went on an overlook to see a view of the countryside. I also managed to find a leather backpack that I now take with me everywhere. Italian leather products are incredible.

The last stop was Pisa, and of course we took an embarrassing amount of touristy pictures pretending to hold it up. The tower is actually quite a lovely piece of architecture and honestly isn't leaning as much as everything makes it out to. Even if it wasn't leaning, I would honestly still want to visit it. Look at those gorgeous columns and arches!!

The ride home was spent dozing on and off, watching the orange and ochre sun-drenched countryside pass by with the sunset in the distance.

In retrospect, I definitely think there is something about Florence that I very much so fell in love with. There was just something about the small streets and spirit of the people, something about the art that I found a little bit in everything, something about the historic beauty that seems so easily overlooked. Florence became one of my favorite cities, and I certainly can't wait to reunite with it one day.

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