Florence

 

Florence turned out to be quite the ordeal.  After arriving at our hostel we went out for the day to tour the city starting with the Boboli Gardens and Piti Palace, Ponte Vecchio, and then on to becoming Friends of the Uffizi.

It is always a bit weird to see older couples making out in the middle of public places, but whatever floats your boat I guess.

The Boboli Gardens were beautiful and we enjoyed taking a break from our museuming to wander through the vast gardens.



I felt quite at home on the crossing the Ponte Vecchio with all of its jewelry shops.  Maybe my grandfather needs to move his jewelry shop from Salt Lake to Italy...



By far the coolest part of the whole day - "it was a statue of the David" (said in a southern accent for those of you who have seen the movie My Best Friend´s Wedding).  After traveling through so many other parts of Italy and seeing so many incredible sculptures I was not sure how impressed I was going to be.  David did not fail me.  The flawless sculpting and incredible detail was astounding.  As you enter the Accademia and turn down the hall, David is at the far end under a dome standing there in all his glory. haha. jk. But really, it truly was incredible.

That night we got a special surprise in our beds which look a bit like the picture below.  When I worked as a SEO specialist at SEBO Marketing I worked on a website for a company that sold bedbug killer.  I don´t really know if that means that I was right to think that is what this little bug was, but I was and still am pretty sure.  We kept all of our stuff far away from the beds and hoped for the best.  

For that reason Adam and I shared a twin bed and not a big twin bed either, haha, lovely.  We both got a lot of sleep that night...

The next morning when the manager of the hostel was back we told her what had happened.  She promised to change the mattresses and get new sheets and everything, but I immediately declined and said that I would not be staying at her hostel that night.  She was super nice and apologetic, and explained that she had never had issues with bed bugs before and would do everything that she could to take care of us.

Consequently, our stay in Florence was free, and we stayed at a super nice hotel in the city center for the next two days...we did however, look through every crevice and crease of our bags, clothing, backpacks, blanket etc. to make sure that we did not have any hitchhikers.  Thankfully there were none to be found, and we have had no issues in the week since.

Saturday we climbed the four hundred and something steps to the roof of the dome of the Duomo.  We got to be up close to the paintings on the ceiling of the dome, and noticed things that just can´t be seen from the ground.



It was crazy to climb up the curved staircase and out onto the roof with the spectacular view of Florence.

The markets and street vendors are fun to spend time at.  If you are in need of a leather shop, Florence has about a billion.  We also went into a fruit and vegetable marketplace, which I usually enjoy.  However, an older lady had a seizure and we came up to find her passed out on the ground shaking.  We immediately asked if there was anything we could do to help, but the ambulance was already on the way.  We felt so useless and hoped that she was ok.

Adam had to take a picture of this guy in remembrance of his trip to Italy a couple years ago when his sisters got a picture with this creep.  I´m not a huge fan of the statue people.



He stands outside of the Uffizi Gallery, and we passed him on our way in.  Just a couple things that we liked about the way that we did our trip to Florence.  First, we didn´t have to pay for housing.  Not that I suggest choosing a place that has reviews of bedbugs, but saving on housing definitely helped our budget.

Secondly, the Friends of the Uffizi Pass, it is a lot cheaper because we are still under 26 which is considered youth.  But, this pass got us into the Uffizi, Accademia, Piti Palace and Boboli Gardens, Medici Chapel, and several other state museums.  Not only did this save us money on entrance fees, but we were also able to skip all of the lines and go straight into all of the museums, and the pass is good for a year so we were able to visit the Gardens twice and go and see the David again before we left. 



And lastly, there is this great American food place run by an Italian man.  It was a delicious Italian twist on American food, and we highly recommend it.

Sunday was my favorite day in Florence.  It was pouring and there were hardly any tourists around.  We attended mass in the duomo, and then spent the day enjoying the rain.  What an incredible city.