I have been in Florence for five days now and I have to say, I kind of bored. This city was not as filled with things to see and adventures as I had expected, I think perhaps only 2 or 3 days here would have been sufficient. Don't get me wrong, this city is very charming and full of art and culture! In fact, even my hostel is covered with frescos painted by art students on the first floor and random grafiti/art by guests everywhere else. You can see pictures and quotes left by people from all over the world! Some of them are funny, some are creative, some just say who was there and when and some of them are complete nonsense (one says: if you want to be Homer Junior, then the kids will call you HoJu). All in all they add to the young traveler/backpacker feel.
On the second day that I was here, I took the tour that the hostel has and was able to see and learn a lot about Florence. We saw a few churches including the Duomo (cathedral) and Baptistry which were beautiful! We also saw the home of Dante (the guy who wrote the Divine Comedy which includes The Inferno; he was like the Shakespeare of the Italian language) and tons of art around the different squares and churches and even on the streets. I got to see a copy of the famous David by Michelangelo in the original location of the first one (which is now in a museum).
Speaking of art, I also got to visit the Uffizi museum which has tons of Renaissance paintings and sculptures. Even though like I said before, I'm not really that big of an art person, it was still pretty cool to see some of the works that I had studies in some of my classes.
Yesterday I decided to take a day trip to Pisa, which is really close to Florence, to check out all of this fuss about a leaning tower. Sure enough, that lil guy looked like it was just about ready to topple over! Buuut, it was a lot smaller than it appears in all of the pictures I have seen. I think even more interesting to look at than the tower itself, was the masses of people with their arms held randomly in the air posing for those *I'm holding up the leaning tower* pictures. Now that was priceless! While I was there I also got to see the remains of the wall that was built around the city in Midevil times aaaaaannnd the remains of an ancient Roman Bath.
On the second day that I was here, I took the tour that the hostel has and was able to see and learn a lot about Florence. We saw a few churches including the Duomo (cathedral) and Baptistry which were beautiful! We also saw the home of Dante (the guy who wrote the Divine Comedy which includes The Inferno; he was like the Shakespeare of the Italian language) and tons of art around the different squares and churches and even on the streets. I got to see a copy of the famous David by Michelangelo in the original location of the first one (which is now in a museum).
Speaking of art, I also got to visit the Uffizi museum which has tons of Renaissance paintings and sculptures. Even though like I said before, I'm not really that big of an art person, it was still pretty cool to see some of the works that I had studies in some of my classes.
Yesterday I decided to take a day trip to Pisa, which is really close to Florence, to check out all of this fuss about a leaning tower. Sure enough, that lil guy looked like it was just about ready to topple over! Buuut, it was a lot smaller than it appears in all of the pictures I have seen. I think even more interesting to look at than the tower itself, was the masses of people with their arms held randomly in the air posing for those *I'm holding up the leaning tower* pictures. Now that was priceless! While I was there I also got to see the remains of the wall that was built around the city in Midevil times aaaaaannnd the remains of an ancient Roman Bath.
Besides doing those few things, I've been mainly just walking around and around the city enjoying the Tuscan vibe and weather (which is sun shiney most of the time but randomly just started pouring rain a few times). I have also gotten a chance to enjoy some gellato! I had chocolate and banana, banana and strawberry and (by the suggestion of the lady working at a shop) mixed berry with cookie flavor which was my favorite so far.
I just have one more full day here and then off to my farm adventure which you will hear more about later!
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