Day 20: Venice/Florence

The view of the duomo from our room
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Today, we decided to take it easy since we were leaving mid-afternoon for Florence.  We woke up and decided to go back to... of course... Piazza San Marco.  This time, however, we decided to go into the Basilica San Marco.  We arrived there right when it opened.  We first climbed up to the "second" floor of the basilica to view the museum.  With old mosaics, a view of the grand basilica, and a view of the piazza, the entrance fee was well worth it.  We then went downstairs to view the basilica from the main floor.  It was HUGE.  Gold mosaics filled the dome and all the walls.  The smell of incense wafted through every corner of the basilica.  It really was incredible.  Then, we had to go to the bathroom super bad.  We didn't have change to use the public bathrooms so we decided to stop in and get our first taste of tiramisu in a little cafe and use their bathroom.  It was so crazy expensive so we decided to share one tiramisu.  The waiters looked at us like we were crazy.  We noticed that here in Italy, people don't tend to share food and so they act all angry when we tell them we will share a dish (this happened earlier with a plate of pasta also).  The waiter brought it with an angry look in his eye.  After a great bathroom break and some amazing tiramisu, we left giving them a nice little tip (they now looked semi-happy with us).  We headed on back to the hotel to grab our bags and head off to the train station.

With the duomo in the background
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The trip to Florence was rather short.  Only 3 hours.  We arrived in Florence at around 6:30 p.m.  We found ourselves at an increidbly super duper clean hotel with a LARGE room.  Not only that, it had a great view of the Duomo too!  We couldn't have been happier with our arrival in Florence.  Now, we were starving.  We decided to head out to Piazza della Signoria.  Flanked on one side by the Palazzo Vecchio and the Uffizi on the other side, it was quite a nice evening stroll.  We did some strolling sightseeing and then found a cute little restaurant with only a couple of Italian patrons in it.  We headed on in.  TJ ordered the tortellini with a mushroom cream sauce and Melissa ordered the risotto with mushrooms.  Delish!  We couldn't be enjoying this Italian food more!  Then as a main dish, we ordered the filet of sole in a cream sauce to share.  That was amazing also!  Completely stuffed, we headed on back to the hotel to prepare ourselves for our next day of intense sightseeing!