Firenze - Florence

My dad’s friend Walter said it best – Florence is the world’s prettiest museum masquerading as a city. It is gorgeous with its winding streets and hidden alleyways. The rooftops you see after climbing the gazillion stairs up to the top of the duomo (the famous dome of the Firenze cathedral) are all covered in the terra cotta tiles. A river runs through it. Picturesque, to say the least.

Everywhere you look there is one of 4 things: a leather store, a jewelry store, a pizza joint, or my personal favorite, a gelato shop. Gelato = my weakness. I had planned to eat my way through Italy but I had overlooked one very important factor: gelato. I was prepared to eat my heart out by feasting on pizza and pasta but the true jewel in Italy is sweeter than most. Lemon and 3 berry gelato – yum!

Like in most cities I have been to on the weekends there were street vendors galore. We spent a good chunk of Saturday strolling through the stalls, spending way too much, and loving it still. We visited the cathedral, hiked up the very narrow and winding steps (over 400 of them) up to the top of the duomo, and basked in the warm sun and brilliant views form the top.

We saw the David. He is one impressive sculpture. Sculpted with such care, you can see every muscle in his marble body. Seeing the David was my favorite part of Florence. I spent a good half an hour just looking at him, trying to remember the names of random quadriceps muscles… rectus femoris, vastus lateralis…  He was crafted with so much detail that you can see all the veins on the back his hands and the tops of his feet. His right hand is extremely large and represents the hand of God. For a person like me who prefers statues and 3D art to paintings, David was about as good as I think it’s ever going to get!

We are in Rome now (after getting here without any problems from the Italian ticket checkers!). I am loving Rome and will write the full story for you during my airport stint on Wednesday. When they say something is old here they mean it is really, really old!  I am off to meet up with Emma and Reuben in Paris Wednesday evening and cannot wait to see them and hear all about their cruise! I miss and love you all  - At

Ps. we stopped for an hour in Pisa - not much to say about that. It's still leaning... that's about it  : )