Florence/Pisa

Cool scarf display in San Lorenzo

Florence turned out to be a lot more expensive than we expected. I figured we would spend most of our time in art museums and maybe do a bit of shopping because apparently Florence is the place to do it.

Central Market store display

Florence also has a spectacular assortment if gelaterias, and we did spend a lot of money on the most delicious homemade gelato there!

Turns out we briefly did one art museum in which we saw the lovely David, and a small musical instrument museum which was part of the Accademia. David was amazing. Definitely worth the money and definitely all its cracked up to be. I would have liked to go to a couple more museums but art museums make Sarah grumpy so we went shopping every day at the San Lorenzo leather market, which was conveniently (or inconveniently, depending how you look at it) located right by our hostel. We did spend a TON of money there which is why we really didn't do a whole lot else in Florence because we were too poor.

Awesome street artist

Markets are very dangerous for us because it is a super fun way to shop. It is exhausting though, because the men trying to sell their stuff flirt with you so much and tell you they will give you a special price because you are so beautiful. The problem is, they tell every girl that so you start to not believe them anymore, sadly. Sarah was especially popular and was told many times that she was breaking Italian mens' hearts. No surprise there haha.

Gilded ceiling of the Florence Baptistery  

Right beside the leather market is the Central Market, which was an indoor food market. We had the most delicious and reasonably priced meals there!

View from our hostel roof at night

Our last day we figured we should probably do something other than shopping the whole day, so we did some leg stretches and proceeded to climb up to Piazzale Michelangelo for a stunning view of the city. Florence is one of those cities you could recognize the skyline of from random pictures. Its quite a beautiful city! On our way back down the ginormous hill we climbed, we randomly found a really amazing rose garden, so we laid down on the grass and took a nap.

A really cute cafe/bar

We did see the leaning tower in Pisa, which was pretty cool. I can't believe that the tower was already starting to sink before they finished building it, and they just had a "meh whatever" attitude and kept building. Its funny, because if you look at the pillars at the top, they are a lot straighter, so they attempted to make it appear perpendicular...

Random side street

Because it was raining so much, we didn't stay there long, we didn't even get the classic holding up the tower picture! But we did see a bit more of Pisa which was really pretty, and looked quite a bit like Florence.

After Florence we headed over to Pisa for a day to hang out with Sarah's friend. His family graciously allowed us to stay with them, and we got a little taste of authentic Italian life. I'm in love! Mostly with the smells coming from the kitchen... unfortunately it poured rain and site seeing was less than ideal.

Florence was a really great city to relax in and soak up culture. Some day I will have to come back and visit all those art museums I missed out on!

Florence skyline