Day 4

We didn't get to Florence until 2:45 PM because we waited a long time for our bus into town and then we took the slowest train, but it was also dirt cheap.  It was kind of fun to just watch the countryside and people watch at the small town train stops.  Florence is definitely a special city.  There were hordes of people walking the streets day and night.  It is a walking city.  Our lack of internet access in Rome made it difficult to plan for our Florence arrival and figuring out buses.  I ended up buying a bus map for the single bus ride from the train station to our hotel.  We took a piccola bus and marveled how it made hairpin turns onto streets that barely fit the little bus!  We weaved in and out of the foot traffic as was dragged our suitcases to our hotel, where we were met by the nicest little Italian grandma.  She was so nice and didn't speak a lot of English, but took to us like a grandma helping her grandkids.  She described distances in terms of walking and told us about the most beautiful walks, but said we could take the quick route and grab a bus.  Walking to the center of town was a mere 50 minutes in her words.  The room key was old-school and looked like it would open any door in the building.  After we got situated in our room, we headed out for some adventure and attempted to get into the Accademia museum without a reservation.  We were fortunate and got in.  Most of the museum was so-so, but it had the classic centerpiece David statue.  I must say it was rather impressive with its size and detail.  Jessica learned that it was David of the Old Testament...apparently she didn't know that before? 

After that, we took to the streets to be a part of the walking masses.  As night descended, another interesting note impressed me.  The narrow streets and ample lighting makes Florence a bustling glowing city at night.  The streets were very crowded until late in the night.  We strolled by the river and I think I took some of the best nighttime pictures I have ever taken!  Artists lined the streets with their wares and some were doing amazing replicas right on the street surface.  Jessica got her daily gelato fix and we enjoyed the evening before walking back to our hotel.

We tried to get reservations for the Uffizi the next day in the morning because it is closed on Mondays, but Tuesday was all full.  Today we made multiple walking loops around the city.  Autumn was in full swing here and the falling leaves in the park made for a great sight to enjoy.  I wanted to walk up to Piazzale Michelangelo but we took a less common route, dubbed as "the most beautiful jogging path in the world".  We didn't jog and surprisingly saw very few other pedestrians along the way.  The view from the terrace at the top was phenomenal, so much so that we bought a decorative wall hanging of the view at the top.  Jessica has been scarf shopping ever since we got to Italy and there were some good deals at the piazzale, but Jessica wanted to keep shopping.  We walked down to the famous Ponte Vecchio bridge. It turns out that the bridge is the site of all the expensive jewelry shops in town.  Jessica was in shopping mode still and we checked out one of the bigger markets in town.  It became apparent that the best deal on a scarf was back across the river and up the hill overlooking the city.  Along the way, we stopped to eat.  It was here that I learned what real lasagna tastes like and Jessica had some spaghetti. 

Rain was in the forecast, so we came prepared with our rain jackets and in early afternoon is started to drizzle.  We trekked up with the hill and most of the stands had closed, but fortunately the one with Jessica’s favorite scarf was still open and we secured the prize.  We went back down into the city and checked out some unexplored areas and stopped in to check out the cathedral.  I had planned on climbing the tower near the cathedral but I was so impressed by the sight at piazzale Michelangelo that I decided I didn’t need to spend the 6 euros a head and walk another 1000 steps.  Jessica decided that we just had to find a magic goodies shop that we had seen the previous day...so we wandered around until we found it and then started heading back to the hotel.  By the time we made it back to our hotel for the evening, we had pretty much walked three big circles around the city during our stay.  We had a LOT of walking in the Walking City.