Whirlwind Tour of Italy: Florence, Day 1

Our Italian adventure began with a 4.15AM taxi ride to the airport. Silly me, I was thinking, "Who wants to get up at this hour!? I bet the airport is dead." Boy was I wrong! When we got there at 5AM it was probably the second busiest I've ever seen that place! Thankfully, things with RyanAir went so smoothly it was scary. After all of the RyanAir bashing Jason and I had done, they made us look like a couple of liars (which was fine by me!). To Jason's extreme relief, we even snagged bulkhead seats with infinite legroom, making our ~$30 round-trip tickets look like quite a steal!

Our flight took us into Pisa, a somewhat central locale for all of the travels we had planned. We landed around 9.30AM and hopped a train to Pisa's central train station. From there we caught another train to Florence, arriving around noon. For those of you who know as little about Italian geography as I do (A is Fireze - Italian for Florence! and B is Pisa):


After checking into our great little B&B (I highly recommend La Signoria di Fireze if you ever find yourself in Florence), our very welcoming host served us Italian cappucinos to enjoy while we settled in. The B&B had a neat artistic theme wherein each room was named after a different Italian artist and featured replicas of their work. Much to my mom's dismay, she and my dad recieved the room dedicated to Benvenuto Cellini, meaning that she got to stare at this all night (my mom took this picture, I couldn't help but laugh at her careful use of angles to create a "self-editing" photo!):


When we passed the statue on the street she stopped mid-step, pointed very accusingly, and said, "That's in our room!" Turns out, she was quite disturbed by this man triumphantly holding up the woman's head that he had obviously just chopped off. I did a little research Mom, would it make you feel any better to know that the sculpture originates from Greek mythology, and this is actually Persus holding the head of Medusa? She was a bad guy - he's a hero!

Anyway, after enjoying our cappuccino, we headed out to explore the city. Our first stop was this pretty piazza at the end of the street we were staying on.


From there, it was off to lunch. The owner of our B&B highly recommended the "authentic Tuscan food prepared by the two large sisters" (his words, not mine!) at a little nearby cafe. The place was AMAZING! It was really impossible to capture how perfectly Italian it was. All of the food was prepared from local ingredients each morning and the two "large" sisters were lively and funny and were some of the few Italians who laughed with us about the language barrier rather than scowling. Everything looked so good that we had a hard time deciding what to order.


Jason and my mom finally decided on this sandwich/breadbowl thing while I tried two different salads. Jason liked his so much that he went back for a second!


Refuled, we headed out to do some more exploring.


The architecture in Florence was beautiful. This amazing cathedral (Il Duomo) was intricatly detailed and took up no less than an entire city block!


This bridge, Ponte Vecchio, is the oldest bridge in Florence as well as the oldest bridge of its type in Europe. It was built in 1345 and is lined with shops as was common during the time of its construction. Originally, the shops would have been used by butchers, local farmers, etc., but today it is home to Florence's jewelers. I had the fleeting idea that I might find a souvenir here until I took one look at a price tag for a tiny (and rather ugly) pair of earrings...strike that idea!



After walking many miles in Florence, we decided to head back to the B&B to rest a bit before dinner. While everone else napped, I visited my go-to website, TripAdvisor*, to find a place for dinner. After some hunting, I found an obscure, off-the-beaten track restaurant with lots of good reviews, and it did not disappoint! The restaurant was small and quaint and the food was amazing. We had a delicious caprese (fancy name for a tomato, mozzarella, and basil salad) and spaghetti with meat sauce. We'll revisit this again later, but if you haven't had pasta with meat sauce prepared like the Italians do, you haven't lived! First of all, the homemade pasta that we were served was fantastic, but it was the meat sauce that really made the dish. It was nothing like the meat sauce you'd typically get in an Italian restaurant in the States. There was no tomato, marinara, etc, it was just meat with a little olive oil and amazing seasoning. Yum! We seriously might have to make another trip to Italy just for the meat sauce. For those of you who know me and my feelings about meat, you'll know what a strong statement this is!

After dinner, we walked around a bit and enjoyed the sites of Florence after dark.


We stopped and enjoyed this street artist for a bit. He was really good! The way the music echoed through the piazza just made it that much more dramatic. We were pretty bummed when he was replaced by some guy singing really cheesy love songs.


With no more good music to enjoy, we decided to head back to the room for a good night's sleep since we knew we had another early morning the next day. We were being picked up at 9AM for a tour of Tuscany, but before that, we had to hurry across the city to the Gallerie dell' Accademia to see Michelangelo's David. This is a replica of the David that stands in one of Florence's well known piazzas; of course, cameras were not allowed in the gallery housing the real deal!



It was our luck that the Gallerie dell' Accademia was closed on the first day that we were in Florence. Luckily, the gallery opened at 8.15AM the following morning, giving us 45 minutes to get in and see it before our driver for the Tuscan tour picked us up. The owner of the B&B thought we were nuts to try to squeeze it in, but we decided it was something we really didn't want to miss. By 7.45AM, my mom, Jason, and I had made it to the gallery and were the first people in line. By 8.30AM were were in the gallery, giving us about 10 minutes to check out David, before we had to sprint back across Florence to meet our driver. The timing was so tight that we had almost decided not to go, but I am so glad we did! I think the detail in the sculpture was what impressed us the most. It's hard to imagine that it was chiseled out of marble and yet it was so intricate that you could see the tendons in the back of his hands and the veins running up his arm. Other interesting tidbits we observed/learned about sculptor and sculpture:

1. The David stood outside, unprotected, from its completion in 1504 until 1893 when it was decided it should be moved indoors to protect it from damage. Nearly 400 years unprotected and it was never damaged...that is amazing to me!
   
2. It took Michelangelo three years to complete the sculpture.
3. It took 4 days to move it from Michelangelo's studio to its original home on the Piazza della Signoria.
4. Michelangelo was only 26 years old when he began work on the David.
5. David's hands are too big for the rest of his body. Art historians speculate as to why this is; if you're interested, check out this Wikipedia article.
   

After seeing David, it was off to Tuscany! To be continued...

*As a side note, I can't believe that in all of my blogging about our travels, I've never given proper acknowledgment to TripAdvisor. If you've never used it when planning your travels, I would highly recommend checking it out. You can get lost in the wealth of travel infrormation on the site - everything from hotel and restaurant reviews to sightseeing recommendations to itinerary ideas for various destinations. We have found all of our favorite little B&B's through TripAdvisor, eaten some amazing food thanks to the restaraunt reviews found there, and heard about some of our most memorable vacation activites through other traveler's postings. Be careful though...it will suck you in!