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Today we headed over to Florence - getting up at 6:30am was a bit of a challenge, but we made it to our 7:30am train - although I did manage to lose my room key on the way! Apparently last night I was sleep talking, but I think it was just revenge for all the snoring I've had to put up with so far! Hahaha.
Having been pre-warned about the lines in Florence, we headed straight to see David at the Galleria de Academia. MAN IS HE MASSIVE! The amount of detail is absolutely INCREDIBLE and his hands alone are so huge… it was really hard to comprehend that Michaelangelo finished it when he was only 29… Kind of depressing too actually! Hahaha. From David we trekked across to check out the fake David (he's just hanging out in the square, but looks pretty good!) to make our way to the Uffuzi gallery. Now this gallery has a 2 hour line - AWESOME. Hahaha. So we wait in the line for our 2 hours, and once inside we get to see the Birth of Venus, Primavera (both by Boticelli), and the Ascension (by Leonardo) as well as a stack of other beautiful pieces I can't quite remember cause we weren't allowed to take any photos. We also saw Michaelangelo's La Pieta (well, the second one, as we'd already seen one in the Pantheon which he did when he was 26) which was unfinished as he saw some flaws in the marble. Now, at this point I'm going to digress. There's a lot of beautiful artwork in Italy - there is also a lot of replicas in Italy. I have no idea why, but we ended up seeing a fair few statues produced twice, which was interesting and kind of confusing… Hahaha.
So, after spending a few hours in the gallery we made our way to the Medici Chapel to see the Procession of the Maggi - which was CLOSED ON WEDNESDAYS!!!! SHATTERED! From there we headed over to another museum where we saw Leonardo's Magdalena which was carved from wood. It was really haunting, and kind of scary to be honest. From this gallery we trekked across to the Ponte Vecchio to check out the only bridge in Florence not destroyed in WWII, which was lined with jewellery shops, and women looking into the shops, and men looking bored. That was the end of our culture side of Florence, so now I'll get to the food part! HAHAHA
So, on our treks ALL over the city we passed many food places, and finally settled on one to get a traditional pizza slice. Nick and I both got different pieces and they were SO GOOD although slightly more massive than we thought. For dinner we hunted down lasagna and Bolognese for Nick which was really tasty too. The BEST thing I ate in Florence though, would have to be the MASSIVE waffle covered in nutella and cream - which then proceeded to cover ME with nutella and cream, much to the amusement of the stall owners in the market as we wandered through.
Florence has had the most unpredictable weather of any place we've been to yet… it was constantly going from warm, to cold, to POURING rain, to drizzle, to clear, to cold, to warm… you get the picture. I've never seen downpours come and go so quickly outside of Queensland!
As much as I've had an obsession with finding an Italian leather coat (that doesn't cost $400 Aus!!! Lol) Nick has had an obsession with McDonald's and trying out all the burgers we don't have at home… he's had about 4 different ones now, so we should be close to not having to go back in there soon!
Another interesting thing I didn't know about Florence was HOW MANY STEPS THERE ARE! Italians love their steps - everything had steps - so much so, that by the end of the day I felt like I'd been back on the Inca Trail!!!!
We made it back to the train, and back to the hostel in ok time, tomorrow is our last day in Rome before we head off to Switzerland!!! Fingers crossed the weather holds up for us!
XoxoX
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