Upon arrival in Florence we did a lot of wondering around. At first we did not really know where to begin so we decided to sort of walk around the place. Just around the corner from our hostel was the leather market and one of the best sandwich shops we had the pleasure of eating at on our trip. The leather market was a lot of fun. Michelle and I did a lot of haggling there. It was fun to interact with the sales people and see what they had to say about their not so real leather. They would even sometimes light their bags on fire with a lighter to show us that nothing happens to the material! This was always fun to see! While strolling around Florence, we somehow ended up walking up to this castle looking thing. It looked interesting so we tried to go inside. Turned out it was a military base to which entrance was prohibited. Mich and I got a good laugh out of it once the guards began to approach us! We seriously had no idea what was going on, so needless to say we were very disoriented and confused. After that experience we decided to actually map out what it is we wanted to see within our next two days here. As it turns out there was A LOT more of Florence than we expected! So the rest of our time there quickly filled with activities. That evening Mich and I went out to a little pasta place right down the street from us. Because we cannot make reservations we had a bit of a wait before we could get a table. Usually we would have chosen to go to another restaurant, but since this place has been highly recommended, going somewhere else was simply not an option. So we killed some time at a pub next door, where I for the first time ever drank a full glass of beer and actually enjoyed it! At the restaurant the food turned out to be absolutely amazing! However, there was something a little off about our service there. The pasta that I ordered turned out to be incredibly spicy. If you have ever ordered Italian food you should know that their dishes are almost never hot, yet this pasta was so spicy that I felt as if my mouth was actually on fire. Even Mich thought it was hot, and that right there says something... Anyways, the pasta was still incredible so of course I fished my entire plate. Well the weird thing was that I was asked four times by our waiter what I thought about my meal. Although it is part of the Italian culture to give a lot of attention to their food, I was the only person being questioned about the quality of my dinner. Than the waiter even brought out the chef to ask me what I thought. They seemed surprised I finished my meal and even gave us free drinks and a discount at the end! Another successful ending to our evening! Loving Florence already!

Our first full day there we went to the Accademia Gallery which housed famous works of Michelangelo. The entrance of the gallery was filled with his unfinished pieces, leading up to the statue of David, his most famous work of art in Florence! While there we learned that the entire Gallery was actually built around this world famous piece, and after actually seeing it for ourselves we quickly understood why. I was especially impressed with the level of detail in which Michelangelo carved David's hands. They were absolutely incredible and very much alive. The rest of the museum was relatively small, but just the statue of David alone made the whole experience absolutely amazing. Judging from pictures I would have never expected the statue to be so giant. I cannot imagine the amount of work that went into this piece! And with such quality! I mean here it is, so many years later, looking just as astonishing as I'm sure it looked back when he originally created it. Amazing to think that someone can have that much versatile talent! The same day we visited Piazza del Duomo which was an absolutely beautiful cathedral. The Duomo had two panoramic terraces one each side of the cathedral itself. To get up to the top there were only stairs, 414 of them to be exact, and that was only to get up to the top of one! But the view was definitely worth it! It was really neat to see most of Florence from there! We could even see a good majority of Tuscany hill sides, it was absolutely breath taking! That evening we walked out to the Piazzale Michelangelo where we enjoyed the night view of Florence. The view and gelato was the perfect ending to our long day of exploring.

The next day we began by waiting in line to get into the famous Uffizi Gallery. With cappuccinos and croissants at hand we were ready to brace another day of adventure! Uffizi was much bigger than the Accademia which made it that much more impressive. The Uffizi hold quite a few famous paintings and sculptures of gods which I have learned about in my Green Myth class. Seeing paintings such as the Birth of Venus in person was absolutely phenomenal. Just like with the statue of David, this piece does not even compare to the imitated pictures I have seen of it in the past. The entire 67.9 in × 109.6 in painting is filed with little specs of golden detailing, causing the entire painting to come to life! Another painting that I was very fond of was the painting of Bacchus! Another Greek God who was known for his invention of wine. All in all this gallery was very impressive and even difficult to leave. I think I went back about three times to see the Birth of Venus just one more time! Ah truly incredible.

That evening, on our last night in Florence, Mich and I went to visit a plaza that was named after her Italian side of the family. To get up to the plaza we got on a bus that drove us away from the main streets of Florence and on to the hills of Tuscany. Once we go to the top, we decided to stop at a restaurant, grab some pasta to go, and enjoy the sunset which overlooked Florence from high above. Wow what a beautiful view it was! After we finished our dinner, we sat there for quite some time just admiring the scenery. We were both so sad to leave! Italy has been so incredible, cannot believe we were leaving for our last stop of our journey before Michelle was going to leave me to go to NY! Ahh time flies, but I know that Rome will be amazing!!!