Firenze Calling

A day filled with traveling. We got up at the crack of dawn and caught our train around 8:00. Funny thing is, it wasn't our train. We accidentally ended up at the wrong platform and on the wrong train. We started realizing this when all 20 of us were in other people's seats. Our professors talked to the conductor and there were enough seats on the train for us. We didn't even realize how lucky we were until we got to Florence that the train was actually going to Florence because it wasn't the one we bought tickets for!

After getting there we were all in somewhat of a daze. We walked through the streets and through a market with stand after stand of bags, belts, leather jackets, scarfs, knick knacks, it was totally overwhelming. The Duomo started peaking out behind the buildings and we were in the center of Firenze!

The Bell tower and the Duomo and the cathedral all were the Medici's. To get to the top of the Duomo (dome) you actually walk in between two domes, there's a smaller one on the inside. It was designed Brunischelli. 

Our hotel was such a hole in the wall type of place, it shared a building with a cafe a museum and two other hotels. Not really sure how this worked but our hotel was about 12 different rooms and we took up about 7 of them haha. The people that owned the Hotel Columbia were adorable, a little British woman and a little Italian man. There was even a curfew on the hotel, they locked the doors at 1:30 AM so we were forced to go to bed at a reasonable hour. We met our tour guide outside and began our walking tour. I didn't pay much attention to what she was saying and was just taking in the sites myself. It was absolutely gorgeous, and so much more open and cleaner than Rome! All of us agreed the streets were incredibly easier to navigate as well.

Picture of one of the streets! I really didn't mean to take a picture of this couple...

We headed to the Uffizi Museum which held tons of famous paintings and statues. My favorites were the two paintings featuring Venus.

View from the Uffizi! All the shops on top of the bridge are jewelry shops...48 of them.

After we grabbed a nice dinner. I really felt like splurging on a substantial meal and I got the most delicious spaghetti and clam accompanied with some white wine.

Deliciousssss

After dinner we grabbed some gelato, it was white chocolate, chocolate and mint. I'm drooling all over again. We sat on the steps in front of the Duomo and people watched then headed back to the hotel which was only like 3 minutes away. We all hit the hay early to prepare for our big day ahead!