We left Sean's apartment in Rome at around 11:00 on Monday morning. We made it to the train station and bought tickets to Florence. I bought a sandwich for lunch in the station and before I knew it I was in Florence. The view of Tuscany from the train was gorgeous and the train moved so fast, it felt like as soon as I sat down we were arriving in Florence.
Our first order of business was to check into our hostel, PLUS Florence. This was without a doubt the nicest hostel (possibly hotel) that I have ever stayed in. That's a joke, but my standards have been set very low from all of these hostels. This place had 2 pools, a bar, free wifi, and huge rooms. After scoping out the hostel, we decided to check out the city.
On our way towards the Duomo, we walked through the famous Florence leather market. This whole street is full of vendors selling all sorts of belts, purses, wallets; all in leather. Once we made it through the market we came upon the most famous area of the city, the Piazza del Duomo. This entire part of the city was gorgeous, and the Duomo definitely rivals St. Peter's in Rome. The building is beautiful, both inside and out.
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| Leather market |
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| Inside the Duomo |
After the Duomo, Erin and I went on the prowl to find dinner. She had heard of an awesome pizza place on Tripadvisor, but they didn't open until 7pm. We killed some time by listening to a street performer, and were sitting down for pizza by 7:05. We ordered two pizzas to share, and they were even better than my Roman ones. One was ham and gorgonzola, and the other had pears, walnuts, and honey. Both were amazing. After dinner we walked back to the hostel in a torrential downpour, and then all just hung out in the hostel and swam in the indoor pool at night. A highlight of this night was seeing an Indian man swim in the pool in uncomfortably tight underwear, leave the pool, dry off, put on a bathing suit, and leave. Legend.
The next morning we woke up and went directly to the famous food market in Florence which is near the leather market. I ordered a slice of pizza for breakfast and shared a canoli. After breakfast we went and got some sodas at Burger King. After BK, yes that happened, we went along to water to Ponte Vecchio, which is the famous shopping district in Florence. All of these high end stores are built on a bridge and we got some of the best views from here.
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| Ponte Vecchio |
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| Ponte Vecchio |
The first place we went to was a sandwich shop called Pino's. I went half and half with Erin on two sandwiches. One had turkey, pesto, spinach, peppers, and cheese. The other had pork, hot sauce, potatoes, and cheese, both on fresh focaccia bread. I am not exaggerating a bit when I say that these sandwiches were the best thing that I have eaten while abroad. We ate them in the middle of a square in the sunshine and I have never been more content.
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| Scene of the Pino's sandwich massacre |
That night we walked up to Michaelangelo Park for some of the best views of Florence and the surrounding area. The view was amazing, and got even better at night.
We met up with Matt and Jacqueline's friends at the park and then all headed to dinner together. We waited for a long time for a table and ended up having a great meal. The food wasn't up to the caliber that Sean showed us in Rome, but it was still better than most of the Italian I've tried at home. As the waiter was clearing the plates off the table, he identically hit Erin in the head. This was unfortunate of course, but she wasn't injured and we got three free desserts out of the scuffle. Win.
After dinner we went to Matt's friends apartment for a while but it was too late to go out so we just went back to our beautiful hostel and got a good nights sleep before Venice the next day.
I kept thinking of this song when I was in Florence. If I had to pick a study abroad theme song, this would absolutely be it.
I kept thinking of this song when I was in Florence. If I had to pick a study abroad theme song, this would absolutely be it.
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