Firenze and Venezia

We made our first real trip this weekend to Florence and Venice! Needless to say, it was an amazing weekend. We went with Euroadventures, which I'll admit I was a little skeptical about at first, but it was a great experience. There was a small group of us who left Rome on Friday morning with our Euroadventures guide on a train to Florence (that definitely felt European!), and we had Friday and Sunday to explore Florence with a day trip to Venice on Saturday.

Florence definitely didn't disappoint, once again. Florence is such a beautiful city and is one of my favorite cities in the world. When I first considered studying abroad, I really thought that I wanted to study abroad in Florence, but I ended up applying to programs in Florence and Rome just in case. In the end, something told me that I should go to Rome, for a few reasons: it's a bigger city (so easier to travel in and out of), there's more to do, and it's less touristy. While I absolutely love the city of Florence, this weekend definitely confirmed for me that I made the right decision. Florence is so much smaller than Rome--you can walk across the entire city in about a half hour. That would take you hours to do in Rome (and it took us 8 hours to walk all the way around the historic center, which you can do in no time at all in Florence!). Also, almost everybody we came across in Florence speaks English and would prefer to speak English with the Americans than Italian. This actually stems from the fact that Dante, essentially the father of the Italian language, was a Florentine, so the people in Florence take their language very seriously and don't like it very much when people who don't speak fluent Italian "butcher" their language, as they put it. In Rome, a lot of people speak English, but they don't mind when I try to speak Italian with them, and a lot of times they will even try to speak with me and teach me different things, which I absolutely love.

The first thing we did when we got to Florence was walk from the train station to our hostel (which was only about a ten-minute walk... very convenient!) and check in for the weekend. This was my firs hostel experience and it wasn't bad! Our hostel was very nice and had amenities like a restaurant, pool, free wifi and a computer lab. We started our adventures in Florence with a walking tour of the city that Euroadventures had set up for us. It allowed us to see most of the city and figure out what we would want to do with the rest of the weekend. Since I've been to Florence before, I had seen a lot of what our tour guide showed us, but I learned some new things, too.

For instance, Ponte Vecchio, the oldest bridge in Florence that is home to gold and silver shops, was the only bridge in Florence that was not destroyed by the Nazis during WWII. The reason for this is that Hitler wanted to make it his base of operations, so he instructed his soldiers to destroy every bridge but the Ponte Vecchio. Then, when the Allies came to liberate Florence, the Germans thought they had it under control because they stood guard at what they thought was the only way to get into the heart of Florence. However, back in the times of the Medici family in Florence, one of the family members decided he wanted a way to get from the Palazzo Vecchio (what is now City Hall) on one side of the river to another residence on the other side of the river without having to deal with the public, as our guide put it. So there's actually a corridor that leads from the Palazzo Vecchio all the way through what is now the Uffizi Gallery through the tops of the buildings on the Ponte Vecchio to the other Medici residence. The only reason we could see it is because our guide pointed it out to us--otherwise you would have never made the connection that all of those buildings were attached by this one corridor. The Nazis never figured it out, either. So when the Americans were stranded on one side of the river, the Italians were kind enough to fill them in about this little corridor, which is how the Allies made it to the other side of the Arno and liberated Florence without being detected by the Germans.

That little archway connecting the Palazzo Vecchio and the Uffizi gallery is where that little corridor starts!

Ponte Vecchio, with the corridor running across the tops of the gold and silver shops.

We also visited the famous leather markets in San Lorenzo on Friday. They definitely know their leather in Florence! I splurged and bought a beautiful leather backpack from a vendor who was more than eager to take out his lighter and prove to me that it was real leather. They take that pretty seriously in Florence--you basically know that if something is in the leather market, it's real leather, because the vendors have to be licensed to sell in the market and they can get in big trouble for selling fake leather.

Saturday morning, we got up bright and early to meet up with about 100 other students from Florence to make the trip to Venice for Carnival, which is kind of like a European Mardi Gras. I was really excited to see Venice, but this was the most disappointing day of the weekend. First of all, it was about a 3.5 hour bus ride, and the bus we rode had a broken heater that actually blew out cold air the entire time. That was uncomfortable enough, but it was horribly cold, rainy and windy when we finally got to Venice--so much so that they had actually cancelled the Carnival events for the day, which was definitely a disappointment. There was supposed to be a huge festival going on in St. Mark's Square, but the most we got to see of Carnival were a few random groups of people dressed up in the full Carnival costumes now and then.

Me with my Carnival mask!

St. Mark's Square, where all of the Carnival events were supposed to be happening.

As much as we got to see of what was supposed to be Carnival...
a small parade of people dressed in the Carnival costumes!

Venice is a beautiful city, but there isn't really much to do when the weather is bad (and it was absolutely awful--I broke two umbrellas throughout the day because the wind was so bad). We ended up wandering from shop to shop to cafe to cafe all day, which can get old. I did go in to see St. Mark's Basilica, but that's about the biggest thing to see in Venice (besides walking around and seeing all of the canals, which we didn't feel like doing too much of because of the weather). Obviously there was nothing we could do about the weather, but I wish I had gotten the chance to explore more of the city than we did. The cold did give me an excuse to try some mulled wine (which is hot wine with spices in it), which was absolutely delicious! I also loved exploring all of the Murano glass shops. Hopefully I will have the chance to go back when the weather is nicer so I can see more of the city!

Sunday we again had the whole day to explore Florence. We started the day with a walk to Piazzale Michelangelo, which is a square on the other side of the Arno from the historic center that has a beautiful view of the city. Seriously, any famous picture of Florence you've ever seen was probably taken from this piazza. It was definitely a trek to get there (it took us about a half hour from the hostel, but the uphill part was a beast), but the view was amazing and we also got to go to one of the oldest churches in Florence (San Miniato al Monte), which is just a little bit further up from Piazzale Michelangelo. It had some amazing frescoes and has a monastery attached to it. Piazzale Michelangelo also has just one of the city's many "fake Davids," although this one is made of bronze, which is interesting.

The beautiful view from Piazzale Michelangelo

After Piazzale Michelangelo, some of us went to the Accademia, where the real David is housed. The Accademia was actually built specifically for the David. One of the most notable replicas is in Piazza della Signoria, where the Palazzo Vecchio is, but nothing compares to the original. During tourist season, you have to book tickets in advance to see it, but we managed to walk right in, which was amazing (and cheaper!). The gallery also has quite a few unfinished Michelangelo sculptures and paintings by other artists, but obviously the David is its main attraction. I've seen it before, and I still was amazed by it. Seeing the unfinished sculptures that line the hallway leading to the David actually makes you appreciate the David that much more because you can see more of the process that it would take to end up with something like the David. Fun fact: the David was actually commissioned for the Duomo, but they had no way to lift it that high, so it was originally placed in Piazza della Signoria until it was moved to protect it.

Managed to snap a picture... oops! So magnificent!

Il Duomo 

Inside Il Duomo

I also went back to the Duomo before the day was over, which is truly a magnificent building. The outside is so intricately decorated that you could spend hours looking at it and not see everything. After one last stroll through the leather markets on our way back to the hostel to meet up with the group to go back to the train station, my weekend in Florence was over, but I'm already itching to go back.