Florence

I think that Florence was my favorite city in Italy. First of all, the shopping was unparalleled. Awesome. I regret not buying more there actually, because Rome was a bit of a let down on the shopping scene. Also, everything worth seeing could be easily walked to. Especially from the awesome location of our hotel.

We got there on a Sunday morning and checked into the hotel. Then, we had to do all museum related activities immediately because they would be closed on Monday. So we went to the Accademia gallery to see the David, and several other Michaelangelo statues, and then we went to the Uffizi gallery. We had to wait on line for both of them, which was lame. We also wandered the Palazzo Vecchio, where we saw the copy of the David in the original statue's location. And we shopped.

Palazzo Vecchio

Fake David (in the real David's original location)

Monday we toured the Duomo which was HUGE. So big in fact that I couldn't get the whole thing in one picture, so I had to take several pictures from different angles instead. We also went to the designer outlets, but it was a bit of a let down - any discount as a result of being at an outlet was completely eliminated by the horrible exchange rate. So we didn't get anything there. But we went shopping again once we got back to the city.

Our train to Vernazza wasn't until the afternoon on Tuesday, so we went to the Santa Croce church in the morning to check it out. And then we did some shopping (surprise). And then we got on a train to Vernazza, which is where the disasters started. But that's a story for another day.

Santa Croce

Michaelangelo's tumb

Gallileo's tumb

I'll update with Vernazza and Rome (in a few different posts) next week. But for now, I go home for the weekend. Yay. Happy Friday everyone. And go Yankees (I cannot listen to Blake gloating about the Phillies winning the World Series for the second year in a row...especially if it's at the hands of my Yankees. That would be horrible).