Florence- How can you NOT love it?

On Friday I took the 6:45am train to Florence, only about an hour away from Bologna. It was a busy day because I wanted to do about a thousand things.. but being the off season most things close around 1 or 2 for the rest of the afternoon. So I had the morning to cram in as much as I possibly could.. and it went pretty well.

1) The Church of St. Mark, which was also a really big Monastery and is FILLED with medieval religious/Rennaissance realism artwork by Fra Angelico... and the museum also has a lot of random architectural stuff from the era. There is also a tribute to Savonarola, a VIM (very important monk) who kicked the Medici fam out of Florence and made the city a theocracy... also, kinda funny.. speaking of the Medicis - Cosmio I Medici himself had a cell in the very same Monastery. Hopefully they didn't live there simultaneously - talk about drama!

2) A quick stop at the Duomo for a photo shoot, but being a cloudy/rainy day - I saved climbing the 463 stairs for a sunnier day.

3) Next, just down the street was the Bardello Museum - home of the many statues that once stood outside very important florentine buildings, but no longer have a home or purpose (yes, it was a bit sad. It reminds me of my favorite toys when I was a kid.. that are now boxed up in our storage room) On a happier note, a lot of these statues are pretty awesome. Its not a very popular museum, but I recommend it!

4)Shopping! I went all over town in search of some tan leather boots, and I found a perfect pair on the south side of the river just before Palazzo Pitti at a store called Rive Gauche. This guy is an 8th generation Florentine who makes all of the shoes in his shop by hand. Very impressive.. so if you are ever walking down Via Guiccinardi.. stop and check it out.

5) Lunch at Trattoria Anita! this was interesting - I found this little place in my guidebook that seemed cheap and authentic so I wondered down this random alley to find it. The place was flooded with italians (so you know its going to be great). The best part is - I'm translating the menu on my ipod touch (I'm sitting at a table for 4) and up walks the waiter with two italian men and without asking, just lets them sit at my table! It makes sense, I guess, that in such a small place they want to fill every seat they have. Excited at the opportunity to talk to these guys - they, like the waiter, also ignored me and just had their own conversation. It was fine, I had to plan out my afternoon - but a strange experience none the less.

6)Basilica di Santa Croce was next.. and upon walking into the piazza in front of the basilica, I found this large, tented area with a couple dozen stands set up underneath... YES I thought, free food!! So I walk up to the tent.. and EVERY stand is FILLED with different types of CHOCOLATE!!! Every chocolate store in the area set up a tent and was selling/giving samples of anything you could ever think of. It was phenominal... but overwhelming since I just had a HUGE lunch. So I snacked on some samples, bought a white hot chocolate w/ rum :) and made my way over to the basilica.

7)The Basilica di Santa Croce was under major construction inside so it wasn't very exciting.. but I did get to see the tomb of Galileio Galilei (AP Calculus... anyone??) and Michelangelo. It was also kinda creepy because in the floor there would be these marble figures (like someone in a casket) set into the floor - like you walk over them. I hope there weren't really people buried under there!! They prob don't like everyone walking over them.

8)The Casa di Dante was next! whoooo!! I was suuuuppppperrrrr excited for this one, because I'm overly obsessed with Dante Alighieri - and for that reason this museum was a little bit of a disappointment. First, it wasn't his real house. Okay, I can get over that a house from the 1300s that wasnt made of marble like the churches may not withstand 700 years of decay - but the rest of the museum was just about the family/political feuding in florence during his lifetime and what florence looked like back then. No old copies of the divina commedia or la vita nuova, and very little info about the influential figures that he used in his works. THE WORST part was that when I was finished with the museum and ready to go to the gift shop and buy something dantean - IT WAS CLOSED!! :( So I vow to go back to the gift shop next time I'm in florence.

Buy this point in the afternoon it started to rain, so I gave up on the rest of my list, shopped my way back to the trainstation, and waited watched the office on my ipod for the next hour until my train left.

To avoid putting ruining what was a great day in Florence, I'm not going to mention the creepy 50+ yr old italian man that wrecked the rest of my evening/bus ride home. You can use your imagination.

So that was all - a good day in Florence and I have some lovely boots and pictures to show for it :)

p.s. my pictures are up on this site: picasaweb.google.com/nicolescripsema