we're headed to florence!

we spent about a day and a half in florence and so i'll just combine them in to a singular post. by the time we got to florence, i was awful tired. we checked in to our hotel and i immediately disliked it. the ladies who ran the katti house were very nice, but we had to walk down the street to another building which was weird. then we walked in our room and there was a small double bed...for me and my brother. ewww. gross. so they decided they could put in a roll away for one of us. but there was a weird smell in there too. and my lungs/asthma were reacting negatively. but we were there, and thus not changing hotels.

that afternoon, we had tickets to the uffizi (thankfully, bc otherwise the line to get in is ridiculous!!!). and i'll be totally honest... i saw what i was supposed to see and that's great but i really don't love renaissance art. and i was dang tired. so i was thrilled when mom said she didn't care all that much and so we read about and saw the famous paintings while dad and carl and tonee spent more time listening to the guided tour.


you aren't allowed to take pics in the uffizi, but this is there 2nd floor cafe where we waited for the others to be done. we were thirsty and just ordered some drinks. after mom ordered, i looked at the menu and discovered her coke was 4 euros which is like 5+ bucks! so we had to just laugh at that point and how ridiculously expensive her coke is. so we took a picture of mom and her super expensive coke.


waiting for dad to finish his guided tour.


a view thru the balcony architecture.


on a bridge. andrew, me and carl.


mom and me and the ponte veccheccio behind us. cute story: when my dad graduated high school, his parents sent him on a european vacation. florence was a stop and he bought a little garnet ring in the shape of a flower for his h.s. sweetheart (aka my mom) who was just a junior. in the 80s, my mom had a cleaning lady who stole a bunch of jewelry from our house. the husband found some of it, but alas, the garnet ring was never found. dad saw a similar ring in a window on the bridge and bought it for her! and it's bigger than the first one he brought back 40 some years ago. awwww, isn't that sweet?!


a view of florence.


the duomo


mom and me




haha, dad consulting the map/guidebook!


the second day we were there, we went to the academie where the david is in the morning (again no pics allowed!). then we walked around and saw the pitti palace and some other things. unfortunately it was sunday and so no one in the artisan area was working and a lot of shops were closed. but we found some delicious gelato at a place in the guidebook called grom.


mom and dad both swore they got dressed on their own and didn't know they were going to match. surrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre.


i saw this sign above a store. i have no idea what it means, but i really liked the word!!!

and then, later in the afternoon, we headed to the train station to get back to the rome area. our trip had come to its conclusion and we were going to spend the night at a hotel near the airport since our flight was early in the morning.

i'll admit that florence was my least favorite of the places we visited and i felt the most touristy. i'm not sure if it was just because i was so tired and kind of ready to just get home since i knew the end was near or if it was just less interesting to me. i've asked other people who've been to italy what they think and it's a mixed bag. some felt it was their favorite city and others felt the same way i did about it.

but, it was a FABULOUS trip and i am so glad i had the opportunity to go!!! now that i'm home, i am dreaming of going back...