Firenze (Florence)

Well, as you can see...Ashley was VERY excited about our train from Rome to Florence. Maybe Jen would appreciate the seemingly Harry Potter style of our cabins on our train. A full room, with three seats on either side, sliding glass door, and personal snack cart...too bad there weren´t any Chocolate Frogs.

Upon arriving in Florence, we thought the humidity and heat was unbearable. So instead of sight-seeing, we relaxed in the air conditioning and then decided wine night would be a good idea...bad idea. Two and a half bottles of wine each later, we found ourselves dancing and eventually one of us (we won´t say which) taking a little nap on the bathroom floor. Needless to say, we weren´t in the mood to wake up early the next morning. When we did, we went to the grocery store and made ourselves some delicious sandwiches. We were so excited about them, in fact, we took quite a few pictures. At this point, we feel we might have been delusional.

That whole day was a day of relaxing as well as some preliminary planning for our sight-seeing the next day. The next day came very quickly, and we found it interesting that it was actually quite possible to see most of the sights in Florence in one day.

First we made our way to Pisa on a one-hour train...and it really was fascinating. It was...leaning. A lot. We took some really fun pictures. Some of our prolonged photo shoot is shown below.



Later that day when we got back to the city, we decided one of the most important things to do is to make the grueling hike up to Piazzale Michelangelo to watch the sun set over the city. On our way, we saw the duomo and rubbed the wild boar´s nose for good luck...you all know we needed it.

The sunset was incredible. It was the best view by far of the city...at the best time of day to see it. In the distance, you can see the Ponte Vecchio...the one bridge not destroyed by Hitler during WWII because of its beauty. Today, it´s a bridge filled with shops and vendors.

The only sight we knew we NEEDED to see before leaving Florence that we could not fit in the day before was the Statue of David. So we woke up early, checked out, and made our way over to the museum where David is held. Though it is a statue of a naked man, the idea that it was carved so intricately and the actual size of the statue is monumentous, we were taken aback. We did have a plan, however, knowing that it was completely against the rules to take pictures (there were very serious guards on duty watching out for tourists who felt they were above the rules), Ashley kept watch while a tourist distracted one of the guards, while Liana took not one, but TWO pictures of David. Quite an experience.

That afternoon we hopped on a train, and rode through the mountains to Interlaken, Switzerland.