Florence

Florence. The center of the Italian Renaissance. This city is what i imagine Italy to be. The small streets, the amazing architecture and the amazing art apparent in all the city. We got to Florence Friday morning and only got to spend 1 and a half days here. Those days, however, were some of the best. I studied the history of Florence and the Renaissance, so actually being here and seeing some of the most amazing work in human history was really amazing. Seeing the Duomo here, Santa Maria del Fiore, and the dome created by Filippo Brunelleschi, who i studied most, was even more amazing than just seeing it by itself. It was such a beautiful building, and being able to imagine what it must of been like to create such art is incredible. There is such a great atmosphere in Florence, and you see it everywhere you go. There are cafes outside everywhere, with locals just watching everyone go by. There are random works of art around every corner, it really is a beautiful city. The first day we met up with one of my friends friend and she showed us around, we went to Duomo and went inside and up to the top of the dome. The view from up there was incredible, it was so beautiful. After that and walking around the city some more we went up to the Piazzale Michelangelo, which is a Piazza that overlooks all of Florence. I thought Florence was beautiful from in the city, but above...wow! We were there for a little while and then got to see the sunset over the city. It was amazing, simply amazing. We all hung out for a little while then went to a really nice restaurant for dinner. They brought out this crazy appetizer plate and i tried liver, ewwww, (but i kind of liked it), but still ew! After dinner we got a little lost, and were just walking around the city not knowing where we were but still having a good time. We finally found our way and went back into the hostel because we had an early start the next morning. We left our hostel at 7:45 in the morning to go to Academia, where the statue of David is. We went right when it opened so we didn't have to wait in line or anything. Seeing the David statue brought a few chills to my body i'm not going to lie, you always see it in pictures and everything, but actually to be right next to it you really get to appreciate how incredible and detailed it really is. Besides the David there wasn't too much else to see so we left and then went to the museum of the Duomo. It was really cool for me because i got to see one of Brunelleschi's hand carved dome, that would be the one we all now see today, and saw other things like a recreation of his workspace. Then we went to Uffizi, which is the most famous museum with all the best of the best Italian artists, Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo Da Vinci, Botticelli, and the list goes on. It is a giant museum and you can't hope to see everything, but some of the work in there was really breathtaking. My favorite was the Botticelli room, with the Birth Of Venus in particular. It really was incredible, and it was like the David in the sense that you see all these paintings online or in books, but actually being right next to them is like seeing it for the first time. We were there for about 2 and a half hours and got to see just some incredible work by some of greatest artists to ever live. It really was amazing. After the Uffizi we left back to Milan, but not before we took a pit stop in Pisa!