Florence, Night and Day

Early train to Florence at 9am and Termini McDonald's still didn't have breakfast (I'm not bitter).

Florence was a small little town with a bunch of churches, I guess that's to be expected.  We arrived an hour or so before our check in time at our apartment so we wandered the streets a little, a settled on the wall looking over the river.

I miss rowing.

So there's this website called AirBnB.com where you can find people renting out rooms or entire apartments all around the world.  It's a favorite among study abroad students because its cheap like a hostel, but not a sketchy, and usually as comfortable as a hotel, but not as pricey.  We (and by we I mean not me) found an apartment that ended up, split 7 ways, 25 euro for the night.  It was a couple blocks from the train station, and when we reached the door, our neighbors on the call box were identified as "Dirty Drew and the Boys."  Oh Boy.  This was not really a concern to me personally, but something told me that Dirty Drew and his boys would be interested in our apartment with say... 6 girls and 1 guy.

For lunch, Katherine led us to place across the river for a great hamburger, but the place was full, so we went to the pizza joint next door.  I ordered pizza wurstel e pattatine fritte.

Yes that would be hot dogs and french fries.  On my pizza.

After lunch, we walked up to the Piazzale Michelangelo, which I heard and witnessed as the best view of Florence.

Next stop was the Duomo (Above, center).  The dome was closed by the time we got over there, but the campanile was open, and offered a view of the dome as well as Florence.  It's 6 euro and a long tight staircase to the top.  I know I'm out of shape, but this climb damn near killed me.  Also medieval architects did not have people my size in mind when designing this structure.

Staircase

View up the center of the campanile.

Recognize this?

Sunset from the campanile.

After the campanile we relaxed at the apartment for a bit, and then headed out for dinner.  The first few places were wicked expensive, but we found a nice place with outdoor seating and the best gnocchi of my life.  Also red wine.  Mi piace some vino rosso.  The entertainment for the night was a visit to "Space," the happening discoteche in Florence.  It wasn't so happening the night we went, the guy/girl ratio was waaaaaay off, but I was the only guy in the group and I wasn't going to leave my girls alone, though they weren't having the best time either.


Sunday was our last day; it was just a quick one night trip, but we made sure to do as much of Florence as possible.  Sunday morning we visited the leather market, which was more or less just walking down a street trying to sneak peeks at the merchandise, for if you were seen looking at an item a man came up to you exclaiming, "Hello, hello, I have nice price."  I managed to get a good price on a belt, 20 euro down from 35, but my real quest was for a shoulder bag.  I didn't get the haggle gene from my dad, so I took my friend Katherine who seemed to have it and man would I have been up a creek with out her.  The price of the bag was 150 (obviously marked up), but something about my gender tells me the male shop owner would not have been as willing to budge off 110 down to 90 if he were dealing with me directly.  My point is, thank you Katherine.

Travel Advice: Florence is a cool city, and very doable in a day if you get up and start your day before 11 am.