A Beautiful Day in a Beautiful City

After my warm shower, Becca and I passed out for all practical purposes, we woke up at seven to explore the city, and eat the free continental breakfast before meeting the group at ten. We found the our meeting place, and walked around a market as it was setting up. We also found the river and took some pretty sweet panoramas. Before we knew it, it was time to meet up. Not very many people showed up for this tour. Almost everyone went out the night before. Luckily Becca and I are on too limited of budgets to go out and get drunk every weekend, especially when that's an experience we can have at home. The tour was basically of the area that Becca and I just wandered through :) It ended in the Ufitzi Gallery, which is home to works by Michelangelo, Botticelli, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Raphael. Very awesome, our tour guide talked us through the highlights of the museum, and when we were done there were only a few rooms we hadn't seen. We went for lunch next and searched for a cheap pizza place we found the night before. After lunch we climbed the Duomo. It was eight euro admission, but once again, totally worth it. The climb was less intense: less stairs, less confined, and no slanted walls. The drawback was that the way up was also the way down, and on both ways we had to wait for large groups to pass before we could take our turn. The view of the city, was much different from that of Rome, but very beautiful. After the Duomo we went to get Gelato at a place very close to our apartment. They had a great selection but the service was not good, and they were not generous with the proportions like every other place we've been to. I had snickers, and a white cream kind that if I remember rightly tasted similar to the almond kind I had the week before. Then it was time to walk through the San Lorenzo market, a large open air leather market. I bought myself four leather bracelets for five euro. It's my first souvenir, and I'm very excited :) I'm probably going to wear them all the time. After the market it was about time to head to the piazzale de Michelangelo, an overlook with a great view of the city. We wanted to arrive at sunset, and had just enough time to visit the Pitti Palace, the home of the Medici family(who controlled the city for a century or so) now a museum. We took a few pictures and made the climb to the lookout. On the climb we realized we were not going to have time for another museum (there were six or so to choose from) I definitely could have spent a week in Florence, seeing the sights, eating wonderful food, and visiting all the museums. The climb to the lookout wasn't as steep as I was expecting, and the view was unparalleled. We came at the perfect time. Afterward we checked out the goldsmith shops, such beautiful jewelry, beautiful expensive jewelry. By this time we were quite hungry and found another little restaurant. Today I could eat meat if I wanted, and just ended up ordering a dish without any. I ordered a linguine with tomato sauce and cream again, but with mushroom, cheese, and black olives, YUM! Becca and I were seated very near a dessert display and ordered a slice of cheesecake, and chocolate cake, and shared them both. The cheesecake was amazing. We stopped at the hotel for a quick regroup and planned a walking route to see a few piazzas. We stopped outside of the Ufitzi to listen to a man who was singing and playing acoustic guitar, he was very good, and we had heard him on Friday night as well. He was so good that I bought one of his Cds. It was ten euro, and my roommate covinced me to get it, but I'm so glad I did. Once we were finished walking we stopped for the second gelato of the day, this time served on a Belgian waffle. I ordered it was kitkat, I'm pretty proud as this is the only flavor repeat I've done so far. We actually went back to discount/ club promoter man's shop, and he yet again gave us a discount, and a ton of gelato, and on our way out asked us where we were going for the night. We replied with,'bed', and bed it was after another wonderfully warm shower.