Florence

On Saturday I took a day trip on my own to Florence. I started with the fast train at 6:45am so I could get there really early. After walking along the river and crossing the Ponte Vecchio a couple times, my first stop was the Uffizi Gallery, where (after waiting in line for an hour, even though it was only 8:30am), I got to see Botticelli's The Birth of Venus and Primavera. That was a surreal moment...two paintings I'd only seen in textbooks and slideshows...a foot away from me! The Uffizi also has an incredible collection of Renaissance paintings...there was a whole room of Titian paintings, most notably his famous Venus of Urbino, Rembrandts, Caravaggio, Da Vinci...!

Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge)

Next I walked up to the Duomo, Florence's most famous attraction. Waited in line again to get inside the cathedral, then waited in line for another hour to get inside the dome. Worth it though! For anyone unfamiliar with the Duomo, it's basically a huge dome that is painted on the inside, and you can climb up a bajillion stairs and see the inside up close, then continue your workout until you get to the top of the dome...outside! Then there is a panoramic view of the city, and you also have a perfect view of Giotto's bell tower.

Inside the cathedral

The Bell Tower (from the ground)

Irony all throughout the climb

View from the top

The only photo I have of myself from the whole day

 

It took awhile to descend back to ground-level, and then I headed for the Accademia Gallery, which has a bunch of paintings and blah blah blah and the DAVID! I would go to Florence just to see the David. My whole life, for some reason, I thought he was life-size, so when I turned the corner to see this...

...I was thoroughly surprised and amazed. He is giant! And just...the most perfect sculpture. I stayed there for awhile sketching, then walked around more and went to the leather market in San Lorenzo. I didn't buy as much as I wanted to because I felt sort of uncomfortable. There weren't that many people, so all the vendors were drooling as I walked by wanting me to buy their stuff, and when I even glanced at something or touched it just to look, they would already assume I was buying it and would start wrapping it up or trying to sell it to me. The vibe was just not right. I got creepily hit on by a Jersey Shore look alike trying to sell me a leather jacket "because with my beautiful light colored eyes..." haha, that makes me want to buy your coat even less. So I was a little disappointed at the market, then again I'm also just terrible at haggling because I never want to spend a lot of money, and always end up insulting the vendors by offering too little, whoops. 

Since I had extra time (train back to Rome wasn't until 5, and it was only 2 by now), I went back to the Duomo area to climb the bell tower. Because the thing is...if you climb the Duomo, you have a great view of the tower but can't see the outside of the Duomo, and vice versa. So I got another workout (legs of steel!) and had another panoramic view of Florence. 

Duomo

The Uffizi and the gardens farther in the distance

I still had a lot of extra time, so I walked around a little, half-heartedly tried to shop, and went back to the train station early. I took the slow train going back, which was three and a half hours. And that was that! I didn't get lost once. Florence was a really easy city. I usually don't like traveling alone but I knew that I wouldn't have to deal with any public transportation or confusing streets because Florence is completely walkable and all the main attractions are in the center of the city. The city didn't completely dazzle me, but it was a really nice day.