Florence & Pisa

So I know I was hoping to get my updates about this past weekend up by Monday or Tuesday, but I guess I was just being too optimistic, haha. There's just too many pictures to sort through, sleep to catch up on, oh, & of course classes too, I guess. :P So now it's already Thursday evening and the weekend is here again! I love four day weekends. :)

Now, on this latest adventure:

Chelsea & I left Thursday evening, eager for an amazing weekend trip. We had about 9 hours between leaving Alba and arriving in Florence, so my plan was to have a big dinner that would hold me over for a good chunk of that time. Unfortunately, I forgot about the stick-shift Italian bus that would be taking us from Alba to the train station in Asti, and I'll just say that a big dinner plus the nauseating turbulence on my tummy was a bad combination. And then of course silly Italian train station bathrooms are open only from 6am-9pm, so Chelsea and I ended up brushing our teeth outside by the train tracks with our water bottles. It was a rather amusingly unfortunate start to the weekend.

Thankfully the rest of the journey was fairly uneventful. We arrived in Florence around 530 in the morning, tired and sleep-deprived, but still with another hour to wait until our hostel opened, and yet another 9 hours til we could even check into our room. We dropped off our bags and changed at the hostel after it opened, and then we were on our way again, somewhat refreshed adventurers out to explore the lovely city of Firenze.

Our first stop was to see the real Statue of David by Michelangelo at the Accademia Museum. We were among the first in line since it was early and there weren't any reservations available - it was a good thing we got there early, too, cuz that line got looong pretty quick.

This is the only photo I got in the Accademia, because shortly after it was taken I was yelled at by a snippy museum lady. Apparently no photos are allowed, which was pretty lame. It was mostly paintings & sculptures in the Accademia, & there wasn't a whole lot that we found particularly remarkable, but David was absolutely amazing. There was so much detail in the carving, like the veins on his hands and neck, and the statue just looked so smooth and life-like - he really looked like a real person, just giant and made of marble, haha. Chelsea tried to sneak a picture, but the same snippy lady showed up out of nowhere and scolded us again, so we didn't try again after that and just settled for buying postcards of him instead. What I thought was really cool about that exhibit though was that the hallway leading up to David had other sculptures by Michelangelo that were never completed, so it was really neat to be able to compare the rough, partially chiseled blocks of marble or whatever material to a stunningly pristine & magnificent finished product like David.

After the Accademia, we did some more exploring around Florence, stopping by its Duomo (fairly simple decor on the inside, & sooo impressively gorgeous on the outside), the Duomo Museum, & the Ponte Vecchio bridge (not as impressive as I thought it'd be compared to pictures I've seen of it, prolly b/c the water underneath it was kinda greenish brown & murky, but it was still pretty).

The stunningly beautiful outside of the Duomo

 

Prayer candle that I lit inside the Duomo

Makeshift panoramic of a piazza on the way to the Ponte Vecchio bridge

Me in front of a fountain in the piazza

Ponte Vecchio bridge

View from the Ponte Vecchio bridge

Me in front of the Ponte Vecchio bridge on Sunday

 Later in the afternoon we headed back to our hostel for a much-needed shower and rest. Our hostel was really nice; I'm glad that Chelsea found it in her guide. Like I mentioned before, we got a room that was for girls only, a computer was provided in each room, and we had our own private bathroom for the room (which was sooo convenient). The hostel was also neat because its guests could write on the walls. It was cool to see the hostel's history from messages from back in the 90's and by guests from all over - I saw some from Australia & I think even Zimbabwe, haha.

Mine & Chelsea's bunks in the room

Our own convenient (& actually pretty nice) bathroom

Room computer with internet that worked occasionally

Writing in our hallway

 

Saturday morning we took advantage of the free breakfast (made to order and actually really good) & then headed out for Pisa. The whole weekend was definitely amazing, but I do think that Pisa was my favorite part of the whole trip. The Field of Miracles was absolutely stunning, as was everything else we saw on this trip. The main attractions were the Baptistery, the Duomo, & of course, the Leaning Tower. Sitting in fields of clean-cut picture perfect green grass & set against bold, bright blue skies, all three of these buildings were so pristine and cleanly white, which is why I think I found the sight so amazing and impressive. 

Field of Miracles; I find it slightly ironic that from this angle, the Tower looks pretty straight, while the Baptistery & Duomo look kind of crooked, haha.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa!

Another gorgeous Duomo

The Baptistery

Silly tourists "holding up" the tower

Another silly tourist holding up the tower ;P

Chelsea and I holding up the tower [stolen from Chelsea]

Chelsea and I being normal in front of the tower [stolen from Chelsea]

After getting our necessary classic touristy pictures with the Tower, we chilled for a while in the field by the Baptistery (the one by the Duomo & its Leaning bell Tower was off-limits), just relaxing, basking in the sun, and taking in the view. This part was my favorite. It just gave me the most wonderful sense of peace, just hanging out by one of the 7 Wonders of the World in the most amazing weather.

[Side note: I thought I recalled from like elementary/middle school there being a set list of just Seven Wonders of the World, including The Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Pyramids at Giza, the Great Wall of China.. but apparently there are numerous lists of Wonders of the World, assorted into different categories. Interesting.]

Me & Chelsea chilling in the Field of Miracles [stolen from Chelsea]

Enjoying the sunny weather & people watching [stolen from Chelsea]

Eventually we did get up again to check out the Duomo. The inside of it, just like the outside, was (surprise, surprise) incredibly stunning. My favorite was the gorgeous golden ceiling; I could've looked up at it all day long, it was so pretty.

The daunting & impressive front of the Duomo

Close up of the gorgeous ceiling

Looking up at the inside of the dome

As late afternoon came, we did eventually (and somewhat reluctantly on my part) leave the Field of Miracles to get back to Florence.

Sunday was kind of our leisure day. The original idea was to take a train to Siena, but we changed that plan Saturday night when we saw that most of the sights to see in Siena had fees, and we agreed we'd both like to see more of Florence and spend some time shopping :P

So Sunday morning we got another free breakfast (a yummy & filling bacon & egg sandwich w/ hot chocolate for me) & were checked out by 10am. Thankfully the hostel didn't mind us keeping our stuff there all day, since our train didn't leave til half past midnight. We set off for Piazza Michelangelo, reputed to have a spectacular view overlooking the city of Florence. It did not disappoint.

Have I mentioned how absolutely stunningly gorgeous Italy is? :]

We hung out in the piazza for quite a while, saw about 4 newly-wedded Asian couples taking post-wedding ceremony pictures (also saw 2 more Italian just married couples later in the day... I guess a lot of people saw 10/10/10 as a good day to get married), tried on some Venetian masks at the stands, & then headed back for lunch.

Piazza Michelangelo

Me copying the replica of David in the Piazza :P

Awesome Venetian masks! Maybe I'll get one as a souvenir in Venice.. :)

If I do get one, it won't be this big, haha.

After lunch we hit up the Uffizi gallery, where we had made a reservation earlier (the line of people trying to get in without a reservation was huuuge!). Mostly it was just paintings, but it was pretty cool because they were all laid out in chronological order so we could see how the artistic styles evolved over the years. Among the works we saw was the original Birth of Venus by Botticelli, which was so beautiful. They told us pictures weren't allowed in this gallery just like at the Accademia, but they didn't seem as stringent about it so I probably could have tried getting a picture, but I decided not to bother, partially b/c I didn't want to get in trouble in case they did decide to make a fuss, and also because it was behind glass and not well-lit so I wouldn't have been able to get a great picture anyways.

The rest of the day had pretty much just one purpose: shopping. :P Many of the Florentine streets were lined with flea market style stalls selling mostly leather, jackets, purses, shoes, jewelry, and Italia/Firenze souvenir wear. Chelsea and I both left Florence having spent too much money, but still pretty content with our purchases :) She got her genuine Italian leather boots that were her goal to obtain sometime this semester (they're gorgeous!), I got myself three souvenir t-shirts (I <3 Italia, Ciao Bella Firenze, & one from Pisa where Snoopy is pushing on the tower saying "La raddrizza io la torre di Pisa!" aka I'm straightening the Tower of Pisa! - it's so cute :P), and we both got ourselves genuine Italian leather purses (we checked the labels to make sure they couldn't just peel off or anything fake like that) and were successful in finding souvenirs for some friends and family back home.

So I think this has been my longest blog yet, but in short,

Florence and Pisa were amazing.

(& I'm excited to go back again at the end of the semester!)