spring break - phase III - FLORENCE
the train to florence was nice. i didn't sleep, i guarded our belongings. so i got to take in a lot of the nice scenery. it was a beautiful day. we got to the train station and began our trek to the hotel, which we found on the internet the other day. what a miserable hike that was. it took us over an hour to walk thru the city to find our place. it was great in the fact that we got to see the city, but carrying our bags that far, on uneven sidewalks and cobble stone roads... was not fun. the view from the train:
the florence train station:
a street near us:
basically when we got to our hotel it was magic. hotel bologna was like a beacon of freedom. a little bit off the beaten path, but it was cheap and nice. especially the breakfast. we ditched our bags and went out in search of food, and we found a great little place. it was called la luna, which means moon we think, and the guy there was extrememly nice. he spoke very good english, and he talked to us about how much he hated the yankees, and loved the redsox, which was pretty cool. the only down side to the place was the portions. i ordered ravioli, and i only got about 6 or 7 little raviolis. whereas, patrick ordered a pizza for the same price, and got a whole pizza. this is the view off of our balcony! (not too good of a view, and there was construction right outside)
from there we went and got gillato. our first florence gillato. i got mousse au chocolate as a flavor, and it was delicious! so creamy, and airy, like the real thing, yet it was so refreshing and tasty!
that day we spent walking around the city, we walked by but did not go in the duomo, which is the big church, and we checked out the doors to paradise. the doors to paradise are accross the street from the duomo, on the baptistry, and are made of gold. they're huge, and they tell some stories in pictures. a huge tourist attraction. but most people don't know that they aren't the real thing, they're plaster molds of the real thing painted gold. but still cool to see. historic. here's the first views of the duomo and the doors:
from there we walked over to the markets, which are a big part of the culture in florence. lots of leather, lots of clothes, and scarves and knick-knacks. its just a street, and they set up booths on the sides of it, and the vendors try and talk you into getting their stuff, which is crap alot of the time. its a good experience. we would end up going back to the markets every day.
after that we walked to the river, and the bridges. we walked over a bridge that had stores on both sides, and every store was jewelry. it was very cool. on the other side of the river, we went to the medici mansion, which is an enormous palace famous because the medici family was huge during the renaisance. they were the patrons for many of the famous works of art made in that time period. we didn't get to tour the place because it was so late, but we caught a glimpse of the house and gardens, and we could tell that it was a really big deal. i found a diamond studded (probably fake) hair clip in the front yard of the mansion. yea, pretty excited about that, even tho i have no hair. here's some shots of the bridge, and the river at sunset.
here's the medici mansion:
patrick, our vespa fan:
here's just some of the area, not on the bridge:
so we learned how to use the public transportation in italy pretty easily. its very different than in london, especially the bus. in london they funnel you onto the bus thru 1 set of doors where you have to proove that you have a ticket. in italy, they dont make you proove anything. you don't even need a ticket. no body has one. its the weirdest thing. we may have been doing it wrong, but it seemed like nobody was really showing anyone a ticket. and we never got in trouble, never saw anyone get in trouble, so i think we're all set.
that night we took the bus around and found a place to eat. we had plans to go to a specific place, but ended up going to a place down the street. the place was cool because on the walls they had money from nearly every country in the world, which was entertaining. this is where i had my HUGE calzone. massive stuff! it was litterally a cheese pizza folded over. but boy was it good. i was hungry. first one to finish too. mmm. here's the calzone experience:
here's the bridge at night:
our plan on saturday was to wake up early grab breakfast and go to the duomo to beat the crowds. the breakfast was unbelievable. they basically had everything that the rome cafe thing had, only it was unlimited. the croisants filled with chocolate or cream just kept on coming! hot chocolate, biscuits, honey, fruit, juice, tea, oh man. we lucked out with this! it ended up saving us a bunch, because we would get alot in us in the morning to last more of the day.
so we went right to the dumo and checked out the inside first. free of charge, the inside wa pretty bare. there were some famous frescoes on the wall, but for the most part, it was just big. the dome was another story. the dome was totally painted, and it was all made to look way more decorative than it was. i think it was my favorite dome of them all. the inner most part of the dome was made to look like there was people in there with their legs hanging out of the top. very cool. but on the way, here's the group of asian girls that was singing by the bus stop. kind of fun:
and here's the duomo:
here's the roof of the dome:
here's us looking up at the dome. i set the camera down and put on the timer. i love this picture, because we're all still and everything in the background is blurry. brilliant:
then, we climbed to the top of the duomo. this cost us 6 euros, but i think it was well worth it. the day was great, very sunny, some nice clouds out there, and the view from the top was amazing! it wasn't too tall, it was just perfect to have a great view of the city. here's the dome on the way up:
and here's the views up top:
after we climbed the duomo, we went back to the market. this time with the premeditated intentions to buy. myself included. i bought myself a hand made fine italian leather wallet. with a change purse! i'm sick of having change in my pocket, so that was one of the things i wanted. and they gave me a pretty nice michelangelo box for it too. so far, its been working great!
next to the market outside is a building that houses the food market. the food market is an experience. raw meet everywhere. animal bodies, everything. fruit upstairs but basically the bottom level is meat, and pasta too. we decided to eat lunch at the pasta place that was inside the market building, and it was pretty good. it was family owned, and the father cooked, the mother helped and the daughter was the waitress, we suspect. they were really nice, and the food was great. they kept helping us and making sure we were happy. pretty cheap penne with meat sauce, so we were totally satisfied. the market, and the place we ate at:
following our lovely lunch, we went over to the uffizi gallery, which is a huge museum in the city, very famous for its renaissnce art. the line outside the museum was huge, because they only let in a few people every hour to keep the crowds inside down. it was nice, out in the line i made friends with a notre dame alum and we chatted it up about the future of their basketball program, and the su program and other stuff. when we finally got in, it was really exciting. kind of like the louvre only on a smaller scale. the big stuff is by an artist called botticeli, he did some mythological stuff. birth of venus anyone? yea, crazy. there was lots of great stuff from the rennaisance, da vinci, muchelangelo, giotto, raffaele, all of them. it would have been great if they had put michelangelo's david in there, but you have to pay about 6 euros extra to see that. and in that separate building, its basically just david to see. and some other unfinished michelangelo sculptures which are cool. but the uffizi is awesome. here's 2 famous famous paintings i snook pics of:
random tower:
from there we took the bus up to the hill on the other side of the river and the michelangelo plaza. this is a great view of the city. its a touristy area, but its a great view up in the hills, you can see the hills, the buildings, the river, the bridges, everything. word is that theres a great sunset up there, but it was a little bit cloudy when we were up there. perfect timing tho, the sun was just setting... there was a cool pattern of clouds in the skiy tho, so that was cool.
the david copy up there:
the medici gardens from the view at michelangelo plaza:
the blogger by the view:
and the sunset:
here's the view of the city in panorama, and then the view of the city with patrick taking a picture of himself:
here's a classic: the sunglass vendor infront of the couple making out. the vendors were so sketchy, whenever the cops came around they would pack up all their stuff and walk away.
that night was hilarious! we went out for a true italian meal, our only one of the break. we went to a place where you could get the menu, the anti pasta and first and second courses, for only 13 euros. so we ate that up, literally. but what was funny is that it was indeed a hardcore italian place, so they didn't really have any english in the building. so when it came time to order, me and patrick both made some mistakes.. first, my antipasta, i ordered crustini tuscani or something like that, which ended up being a couple pieces of toast covered, SLATHERED in some sort of brown pasty poo. tasted nasty, looked nasty, i swallowed it down, but i regreted it. i suspect it was pate. which i found out is not in my bag. yuck. the rest of my dinner was good, penne, and chicken. patrick, made the worst mistake of all. he had been looking for a cut of meat called a florentine, and this place had it, but there was a word infront of it that we didn't know. when we asked the waiter what the word meant, he said "stomach" but he pronounced the ch like cheese or choke. patrick must not have understood it, so he ordered it. it didn't come out until he started making fun of m pate when i asked him why he ordered stomach. the look on his face was hilarious. he had no idea!! when it came, it was in a pot, and it was little rubbery picees of.. stomach. totally nasty. needless to say, he didn't finish it, blamed it on fullness. he said it was gross tho, what a bad mistake to make. it made the night really fun tho. the house wine was good too. very strong. here's patrick, and you can see the bowl with stomach in it. doesn't look too bad, unless you know what it is.
after dinner that night we went to what we had heard was the best gillato place in all of italy. and i think they were right. it was crazy how out of the way this place was, and they didn't really care about the tourists. they didn't even have cones, they served everything in dishes. but it was delicious. it was the best in italy, i'm convinced. i got the mouse au chocolat again! it was even better than before! mmmm, oh man. we went back to bologna for bed after that and we slept like babies.
sunday morning went perfectly according to plan. we knew we were going to hit up the academy, which is where the david is, because the line gets enormous! we got there 30 mins before it opened, and the line was already almsot a block long. and this is the line for people who don't have tickets. you can buy tix in advance, but we didn't. so we had to wait in the line.
but we got in and went right to the david (which isn't hard because its the main thing there). it was huge, very cool to see, you can walk around it, which is neat because there's a very famous vain in the marble in the back. if the sculpture hits the vain the wrong way, it will shatter the chunk of marble, so it just proves how brilliant michelangelo was.
after the david viewing we took the bus back to the hotel for our last bit of breakfast, then went back to the city to the markets a little bit before we headed to the trainstation. we took the train to pisa, about a 20 min ride, where we were to fly out at night. so we had so much time to kill in pisa, that we took the bus there to the plaza where the leaning tower is! it was great way to get one more city in, because the leaning tower is pretty much all there is in pisa, we think. but it was definitely cool to see!
and then we flew out! and thats it! we took the plane home to stanstead airport, and waited in the passport line for a long time, because everyone and their mother was coming home that night. then we took a bus home to marble arch, edgware road, and then came home! all in all, it was a fantastic week! seeing everythign was incredible!
i think thats it for spring break! stay tuned for dublin ireland over easter break!
cheers!
jamie
the florence train station:
a street near us:
basically when we got to our hotel it was magic. hotel bologna was like a beacon of freedom. a little bit off the beaten path, but it was cheap and nice. especially the breakfast. we ditched our bags and went out in search of food, and we found a great little place. it was called la luna, which means moon we think, and the guy there was extrememly nice. he spoke very good english, and he talked to us about how much he hated the yankees, and loved the redsox, which was pretty cool. the only down side to the place was the portions. i ordered ravioli, and i only got about 6 or 7 little raviolis. whereas, patrick ordered a pizza for the same price, and got a whole pizza. this is the view off of our balcony! (not too good of a view, and there was construction right outside)
from there we went and got gillato. our first florence gillato. i got mousse au chocolate as a flavor, and it was delicious! so creamy, and airy, like the real thing, yet it was so refreshing and tasty!
that day we spent walking around the city, we walked by but did not go in the duomo, which is the big church, and we checked out the doors to paradise. the doors to paradise are accross the street from the duomo, on the baptistry, and are made of gold. they're huge, and they tell some stories in pictures. a huge tourist attraction. but most people don't know that they aren't the real thing, they're plaster molds of the real thing painted gold. but still cool to see. historic. here's the first views of the duomo and the doors:
from there we walked over to the markets, which are a big part of the culture in florence. lots of leather, lots of clothes, and scarves and knick-knacks. its just a street, and they set up booths on the sides of it, and the vendors try and talk you into getting their stuff, which is crap alot of the time. its a good experience. we would end up going back to the markets every day.
after that we walked to the river, and the bridges. we walked over a bridge that had stores on both sides, and every store was jewelry. it was very cool. on the other side of the river, we went to the medici mansion, which is an enormous palace famous because the medici family was huge during the renaisance. they were the patrons for many of the famous works of art made in that time period. we didn't get to tour the place because it was so late, but we caught a glimpse of the house and gardens, and we could tell that it was a really big deal. i found a diamond studded (probably fake) hair clip in the front yard of the mansion. yea, pretty excited about that, even tho i have no hair. here's some shots of the bridge, and the river at sunset.
here's the medici mansion:
patrick, our vespa fan:
here's just some of the area, not on the bridge:
so we learned how to use the public transportation in italy pretty easily. its very different than in london, especially the bus. in london they funnel you onto the bus thru 1 set of doors where you have to proove that you have a ticket. in italy, they dont make you proove anything. you don't even need a ticket. no body has one. its the weirdest thing. we may have been doing it wrong, but it seemed like nobody was really showing anyone a ticket. and we never got in trouble, never saw anyone get in trouble, so i think we're all set.
that night we took the bus around and found a place to eat. we had plans to go to a specific place, but ended up going to a place down the street. the place was cool because on the walls they had money from nearly every country in the world, which was entertaining. this is where i had my HUGE calzone. massive stuff! it was litterally a cheese pizza folded over. but boy was it good. i was hungry. first one to finish too. mmm. here's the calzone experience:
here's the bridge at night:
our plan on saturday was to wake up early grab breakfast and go to the duomo to beat the crowds. the breakfast was unbelievable. they basically had everything that the rome cafe thing had, only it was unlimited. the croisants filled with chocolate or cream just kept on coming! hot chocolate, biscuits, honey, fruit, juice, tea, oh man. we lucked out with this! it ended up saving us a bunch, because we would get alot in us in the morning to last more of the day.so we went right to the dumo and checked out the inside first. free of charge, the inside wa pretty bare. there were some famous frescoes on the wall, but for the most part, it was just big. the dome was another story. the dome was totally painted, and it was all made to look way more decorative than it was. i think it was my favorite dome of them all. the inner most part of the dome was made to look like there was people in there with their legs hanging out of the top. very cool. but on the way, here's the group of asian girls that was singing by the bus stop. kind of fun:
and here's the duomo:
here's the roof of the dome:
here's us looking up at the dome. i set the camera down and put on the timer. i love this picture, because we're all still and everything in the background is blurry. brilliant:
then, we climbed to the top of the duomo. this cost us 6 euros, but i think it was well worth it. the day was great, very sunny, some nice clouds out there, and the view from the top was amazing! it wasn't too tall, it was just perfect to have a great view of the city. here's the dome on the way up:
and here's the views up top:
after we climbed the duomo, we went back to the market. this time with the premeditated intentions to buy. myself included. i bought myself a hand made fine italian leather wallet. with a change purse! i'm sick of having change in my pocket, so that was one of the things i wanted. and they gave me a pretty nice michelangelo box for it too. so far, its been working great!
next to the market outside is a building that houses the food market. the food market is an experience. raw meet everywhere. animal bodies, everything. fruit upstairs but basically the bottom level is meat, and pasta too. we decided to eat lunch at the pasta place that was inside the market building, and it was pretty good. it was family owned, and the father cooked, the mother helped and the daughter was the waitress, we suspect. they were really nice, and the food was great. they kept helping us and making sure we were happy. pretty cheap penne with meat sauce, so we were totally satisfied. the market, and the place we ate at:
following our lovely lunch, we went over to the uffizi gallery, which is a huge museum in the city, very famous for its renaissnce art. the line outside the museum was huge, because they only let in a few people every hour to keep the crowds inside down. it was nice, out in the line i made friends with a notre dame alum and we chatted it up about the future of their basketball program, and the su program and other stuff. when we finally got in, it was really exciting. kind of like the louvre only on a smaller scale. the big stuff is by an artist called botticeli, he did some mythological stuff. birth of venus anyone? yea, crazy. there was lots of great stuff from the rennaisance, da vinci, muchelangelo, giotto, raffaele, all of them. it would have been great if they had put michelangelo's david in there, but you have to pay about 6 euros extra to see that. and in that separate building, its basically just david to see. and some other unfinished michelangelo sculptures which are cool. but the uffizi is awesome. here's 2 famous famous paintings i snook pics of:
random tower:
from there we took the bus up to the hill on the other side of the river and the michelangelo plaza. this is a great view of the city. its a touristy area, but its a great view up in the hills, you can see the hills, the buildings, the river, the bridges, everything. word is that theres a great sunset up there, but it was a little bit cloudy when we were up there. perfect timing tho, the sun was just setting... there was a cool pattern of clouds in the skiy tho, so that was cool.the david copy up there:
the medici gardens from the view at michelangelo plaza:
the blogger by the view:
and the sunset:
here's the view of the city in panorama, and then the view of the city with patrick taking a picture of himself:
here's a classic: the sunglass vendor infront of the couple making out. the vendors were so sketchy, whenever the cops came around they would pack up all their stuff and walk away.
that night was hilarious! we went out for a true italian meal, our only one of the break. we went to a place where you could get the menu, the anti pasta and first and second courses, for only 13 euros. so we ate that up, literally. but what was funny is that it was indeed a hardcore italian place, so they didn't really have any english in the building. so when it came time to order, me and patrick both made some mistakes.. first, my antipasta, i ordered crustini tuscani or something like that, which ended up being a couple pieces of toast covered, SLATHERED in some sort of brown pasty poo. tasted nasty, looked nasty, i swallowed it down, but i regreted it. i suspect it was pate. which i found out is not in my bag. yuck. the rest of my dinner was good, penne, and chicken. patrick, made the worst mistake of all. he had been looking for a cut of meat called a florentine, and this place had it, but there was a word infront of it that we didn't know. when we asked the waiter what the word meant, he said "stomach" but he pronounced the ch like cheese or choke. patrick must not have understood it, so he ordered it. it didn't come out until he started making fun of m pate when i asked him why he ordered stomach. the look on his face was hilarious. he had no idea!! when it came, it was in a pot, and it was little rubbery picees of.. stomach. totally nasty. needless to say, he didn't finish it, blamed it on fullness. he said it was gross tho, what a bad mistake to make. it made the night really fun tho. the house wine was good too. very strong. here's patrick, and you can see the bowl with stomach in it. doesn't look too bad, unless you know what it is.
after dinner that night we went to what we had heard was the best gillato place in all of italy. and i think they were right. it was crazy how out of the way this place was, and they didn't really care about the tourists. they didn't even have cones, they served everything in dishes. but it was delicious. it was the best in italy, i'm convinced. i got the mouse au chocolat again! it was even better than before! mmmm, oh man. we went back to bologna for bed after that and we slept like babies.
sunday morning went perfectly according to plan. we knew we were going to hit up the academy, which is where the david is, because the line gets enormous! we got there 30 mins before it opened, and the line was already almsot a block long. and this is the line for people who don't have tickets. you can buy tix in advance, but we didn't. so we had to wait in the line.but we got in and went right to the david (which isn't hard because its the main thing there). it was huge, very cool to see, you can walk around it, which is neat because there's a very famous vain in the marble in the back. if the sculpture hits the vain the wrong way, it will shatter the chunk of marble, so it just proves how brilliant michelangelo was.
after the david viewing we took the bus back to the hotel for our last bit of breakfast, then went back to the city to the markets a little bit before we headed to the trainstation. we took the train to pisa, about a 20 min ride, where we were to fly out at night. so we had so much time to kill in pisa, that we took the bus there to the plaza where the leaning tower is! it was great way to get one more city in, because the leaning tower is pretty much all there is in pisa, we think. but it was definitely cool to see!
and then we flew out! and thats it! we took the plane home to stanstead airport, and waited in the passport line for a long time, because everyone and their mother was coming home that night. then we took a bus home to marble arch, edgware road, and then came home! all in all, it was a fantastic week! seeing everythign was incredible!
i think thats it for spring break! stay tuned for dublin ireland over easter break!
cheers!
jamie
posted by Jamie at 12:23 PM
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