Sunday 18 August 2013

Go with the Florence

Florence was the most "Italian" city I've been to so far on this trip. I didn't like it as much as Venice but it was exactly how I imagined an Italian city should look with its narrow, cobblestoned streets and eclectic assortment of old, colorful buildings. It helped as well that both myself and our trip bus driver had both rectory finished reading the latest Dan Brown novel 'Inferno' which is set mostly in Florence and focuses on the work of Florence's most famous author, Dante Alighieri. It was a good introduction to the more historical aspects of the town that was the birth and home of the Renaissance in Italy.

 

After we arrived and set up our tents, we walked into town for a guided walking tour from a local guide who showed us most of the sites of importance. These included the Uffizi galleries, the Boboli Gardens, Ponte Vecchio and Il Duomo. After the tour, we got dinner as a large group (kind of getting over pizza and pasta by this point) and then moved on to karaoke. I'm really the opposite of a 'karaoke guy' but I figured the old adage about doing Roman things in Rome still applied in Florence and I rocked the house. No biggie, ain't no thang. When we got back to the campsite, some drunk German guys who had apparently also been there congratulated me on being awesome. It's nice to be appreciated.

Topdeck people
My brilliance is clearly appreciated by this fellow

 

The next morning we wandered around Florence for a little bit more, had lunch and then left for Rome. I got to go inside Il Duomo which was very uninspiring after the exterior of the building. Il Duomo (Florence's main cathedral) was once the largest building in the world and is, in my opinion, the most impressive church in Europe (at least of the ones I've seen) from the outside. The inside was a little bare by com

Oh, and I went to Pisa. Hilarity ensued. There's not much there except the poorly built tower.

 

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