Firenze (Florence)

On Wednesday morning we took a train to Florence and had a relatively relaxing first day.  Our hotel was within a few feet of the Duomo, so we were right in the middle of everything.  We made reservations with both art museums for the following day, and spent the rest of day walking around the city.  Lance and Chris decided to visit the Galileo science museum in the afternoon, while Melodi and I opted to take in some shopping instead.  The Galileo museum is probably every engineers dream to visit as they both were still lit up when they returned from everything they saw and learned.  Apparently Mel and I really missed out because this museum also displays Galileo's thumb, middle finger, and a tooth.   Completely random, and a little disturbing, but they loved it.  We went to the Duomo that afternoon and walked around the inside of the cathedral, then spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the city together and doing a little more souvenior shopping.  A friend of mine, Jack Thomas, told me that Florence is known for their leather and that I should get some leather while I'm there.  I didn't really think I would spend any money on myself, but ended up making a good sale at a leather store on a duffle size bag.  Lance ended up getting a leather belt and wallet while we were there too.  So much for not souvenir shopping for myself! :)  That night we walked up to Piazzale Michelangelo, which has a gorgeous panoramic view of the city area.

The Duomo, pictures could never do this justice

This is called "Il Porcellino" (Italian for the Piglet)

Fayetteville, AR has a replica of this on campus across from the law school

The next day we went to the Uffizi renaissance art museum in the morning.  I wish Melodi was writing for me at this point in the blog because this day was 'right up her alley'.  I definitely appreciate art, but she knows art history so much better than anyone in the family and obviously really enjoyed and appreciated all the art on a much deeper level than the rest of us.  During the afternoon we went to the Accademia Gallery museum primarily to see the "David by Michelangelo".  They also had a special part of the museum that held baroque to early classical era orchestral instruments.  It's interesting to see how instruments have evolved over time and to put into perspective that these were the instruments that first played some of the greatest baroque and early classical era compositions.

Florence is such a beautiful part of Italy due to the river running through the town and the hills around the city.  Even though we did everything we wanted to do, I wish we would have had more time in Florence just because it was such a pretty city and the food was delicious!  The dinner we had in Florence was probably the best dinner we had all week.  Florence is apparently known for good eating and it certainly didn't disappoint!

That evening we took a train to La Spezia, which is a 5 minute train from Cinque Terre to stay for the night.  :)