Europe Trip: Florence

Florence was gorgeous. It was only about a 45 min drive from Pisa so we managed to arrive at our campsite BEFORE it got dark...which was a first! The drive through the Tuscan countryside was spectacular and I didn't even bother trying to take pictures of it because I knew the pictures couldn't capture the beauty I saw, plus it's hard to take nice pictures from a car window. We arrived around dinner time and decided to eat at the little restaurant in the campground. We ordered a pizza with pineapple and spaghetti. It took a while to get the food so we ordered it to go that way we could set up our tent before it got too dark. We didn't have a table or chairs so I pulled one of the suitcases out and set up our dinner on the ground. A family saw us from their camper and brought over a card table and a few chairs for us to use. It was so nice of them to let us borrow it. We set up the tent, ate, then got the kids ready for bed. The kids fell asleep and we figured out what we wanted to do in Florence the next day. We laid down to go to sleep and all of the sudden we heard music coming from somewhere. We realized after a while it wasn't coming from the campsite it was coming from one of the Chateau's on the next hill over. Whoever it was was throwing a party and had a live band who played ABBA songs the whole time. It was GREAT!! I got to hear the whole concert from inside my cozy tent for free :)

The next day we packed up, filled up our tank, and headed into the city. Daniel had been to Florence before (singing) so he knew a lot more about the city than I did so I let him pick where we should go. The only thing I really had on my "list" was to see the Statue of David and that was about it. It took a little while for us to find a parking place but it gave us a chance to drive around the city a little. Once we parked we started walking and made our way over to The Duomo which for those of you who don't know what that is it is the Cathedral in Florence. It has a big dome on top and is really famous. Another famous thing to see (right next to the Cathedral) is the Gates of Paradise at the Florence Baptistery. They are they really big bronze doors that have panels depicting stories or instances from the life of John the Baptist. They were really cool to look at but there were so many people there that day that we didn't really get to see it all that well.

We walked over to the the backside of the Galleria dell' Accademia where the Statue of David is. The line to get in was literally around 2 sides of the building going on to the 3rd....it was REALLY long. Daniel decided to go find out how to get tickets and I got in the back of the line. I fed the kids while we waited and barely made it 10 feet after about 20-25 min of waiting when Daniel finally came back and said there was a 3 hour wait and you're not even allowed to take pictures when you get inside. Thumbs down! There was no way I was going to wait in line for 3 hours just to glance at something I can't even take a picture with so we decided to go find lunch instead. Little did I know that not too far from where I was standing was the Palazzo Vecchio that just happens to have a replica of the Statue of David at its entrance. BAH! There were just so many people all over the place and it was really hot that day that I lost all interest to walk around and site see. I wish I would have known but that's ok. It gives me an excuse to want to go back to Florence some day. We found this really cute little food place that barely had enough room to order food and leave again but I got to eat my first lasagna in Italy. I really liked it but it tasted so different than what I am use to eating. Authentic Italian food tastes really different than Americanized Italian food....I still love Olive Garden though!! Down the same street that we found our lunch we found a "99 cent shop". It was so cool finding an actual 99 cent shop there. Not everything was 99 cents but stuff there was pretty cheap. Daniel bought some sunglasses and these weird stretchy squishy toys for the boys. We walked back the way we came from and found a cool little shop that sold ties. I found one that had pictures of Euro's on it and made Daniel buy it (I thought it was a cool lookin' tie!) We made our way back to the car (thank goodness we had underground parking so our car was cool because it was a really hot day) and realized we still needed to find the Hard Rock Cafe. We put in the address into our GPS and started driving. As it instructed us to go this way and that way through the streets of Florence it started taking us into areas of the city where the streets are blocked off for pedestrian use only (some of the streets were way too narrow for a car to enter). We tried for what seemed like a long time to try and navigate our way through the streets to try and find the Cafe without success. We finally pulled over and found a parking place not far from the underground parking we had just left and Daniel decided to find it on foot. Luckily we parked in front of a Gelato shop and I managed to use the little Italian I know (mostly pointing to the flavors I wanted then saying "Grazie!") to order a delicious chocolate and mint Gelato while we waited for Daniel to get back. It took him an hour to find the Hard Rock Cafe, buy a pin, then find our car again. The annoying thing was we were just a few blocks away from it when we were walking around the Duomo but we didn't know where it was. It had only opened a month before so it was pretty new to the area.

Before we left Florence we drove up to the Piazzale Michelangelo which is a famous square up on a hill that gives a panoramic view of Florence. It was beautiful up there and the perfect ending to a great day in Firenze!!