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The travel is a breeze here, even after realising that we were at the wrong train station in Rome, after waving goodbye to Nicole's mum, we were soon on the Metro and at the correct station. It just wouldn't have been that easy in Vietnam or China.
After a very comfy train journey further north, through hills and vineyards with small Italian towns dotting the landscape, we arrived in our next destination, Florence. It is regarded as the birth place of the Renaissance, a period of re discovery of the Roman and Greek arts. Although we do not know anything about the history of art, we could appreciate the beauty of some of the buildings and statues here. Alot of the buildings are modern but still hold the Italian charms of the city with wooden shutters and cobbled streets. Florence is also a huge fashion hub, with designer stores on every street corner, and the stylish Italians showing us up in our jeans and jumpers.
Our youth hostel was a good 20 minute walk away from the station, which would have been a daunting task in the boiling hot heats of Thailand. However, in 2 degree weather we happily strolled down the streets to warm ourselves up, even the steps up to our hostel floor was welcomed by our freezing bodies. The hostel itself was modern, clean and spacious. We had a great stay here and could cook up some basic meals in the kitchen to save us some Euros. We even splashed out and had some Chanti wine with our basic pasta and sauce meal, out of disposable plastic cups.
Having only one day to visit the sites we woke up early headed out for a typical Italian breakfast, a coffee and crossiant in a small local bar in San Marco square. We had planned to see Michaelangelo's David statue, however the charge was a flipping fortune, and with no passion to see the statue we opted out. However we did pay to reasonable fee to see the Duomo de Frienze. The main cathedral of Florence, which was one of the first dome structures designed into a church. It is decorated in a Neo Gothic style, very different to the churches we had visited in Rome. We climbed the 463 steep steps up to the main dome. The passageway ran through tiny stone corridors and uneven steps for a good 20 minutes until it reached the top platform on the highest point of the dome. It was a rewarding view looking out over the city of Florence with blue skies above, even if we did loose Nicoles glove somewhere on the long climb up. The route back down passed right underneath the inside of the dome, which was covered in a large painting depicting heaven and hell, it was stunning to imagine someone up so high painting but we didn't like the hell paintings too much! Luckily someone picked up our missing glove on their way up and we were reunited. We can't imagine what it would be like at peak tourist season climbing up and down through the narrow passageways with all the people. Sadly the walls of this sacred place had been covered in graffiti from unrespectful people from all over the world.
The Duomo ticket also allowed us to enter the cathedrals crypts, that revealed the ruins of a previous Roman church. The recovered mosaic flooring was actually laid by African trades people, as the Romans traded with Africa at the time. We love exploring churches and ruins so for us this was right up our street. Especially the museum included in our ticket explaining how they built the Cathedral and different pieces of art work that decorated the church.
We also visited the market bridge of Ponte Vecchio it was the only bridge left standing after the Germans retreated from Florence as they blew up the rest. The bridge is covered in shops that used to be butcher shops, but its now moved onto the more expensive items of jewellery. The buildings are not as old as Rome, with many of them being bombed but it still has some Medieval type buildings left such as churches or market squares. It was interesting to see the differences between the two cities.
Something we noticed in Rome and also in Florence was the self stick sellers. These people are not Italian, they are all males from middle Eastern countries. It concerned us with the migrant crisis, of how these people made any money and where they lived. They all knew each other and we didn't see one person sell anything. We also spotted African males selling the same wooden goods as each other set up on a blanket. At one point we saw them legging down the street to shove their selfie sticks into the bin before the police caught them selling it. It all looks a bit suspicious, like they could be taken advantage of. We wonder what the Italian government is doing about it all or whether the rest or Europe may look the same.
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