Florence and Siena

Hi Blog! It's been a while.

Sorry for the lack of writing. This past month was crunch time for me as I was quickly approaching my deadline to complete all of my independent study work. I still can't believe how long its taken me to complete just 12 credits. I guess I am not much of an independent studier. It's pretty difficult just reading all day to teach yourself instead of having discussions with other students and listening to lectures. It gets pretty dull, to tell you the truth, and it's hard to stay motivated. But I am done with all of my assignments! YAY! And now I just have to take two finals.

But anyways, life has still remained quite exciting here in Italy since the last time I wrote. We had another blessed four day weekend in March and we decided on the spur of the moment to drive down to Florence. We weren't planning on going anywhere at first, because it looked like the weather was going to be crappy anywhere we wanted to go. But we checked the weather one last time in Florence and it looked like it was going to be clear, so we were off!

We drove down on Friday. Its about a three hour drive, but a splendid one, winding through the beautiful hills and vineyards of Tuscany. We rented an apartment on homeaway.com again, and we met the owner right outside the toll gate. We followed him to his house, which was just outside of Florence. We parked our car at his house (because we aren't allowed to drive within the city of Florence) and he drove us down to the apartment. The apartment was pretty old, but it was clean, and we were just thankful to have a place to keep our car, instead of paying 20 euro a day to park it in a garage. The location of the apartment, however was awesome. It was nice and quiet, beautiful, and just down the street from the Ponte Vecchio.

Our neighborhood in Florence.

I found a hobbit door!

We decided to begin our Florence adventure by crossing over the Ponte Vecchio and exploring the city of Florence on a walking tour.

The Arno River, Ponte Vecchio, and arcade leading to the Uffizi. We just got a lot of rain, so the water was brown and icky. Do you see the little windows at the top of the bridge and the top of the white arches of the arcaded corridor to the right? That is called the Vasari Corridor. It is a passageway that connects the Palazzo Vecchio with the Uffizi and the Pitti Palace that the city leaders could use in less secure times for safety.

The Ponte Vecchio is a bridge with a string of jewelry shops on it. It's very romantic at night, when street musicians perform.

Another view of the Ponte Vecchio. It was my favorite part of Florence.

Next, we headed over to Piazza della Signoria, which is the main square in Florence, dominated by the Palazzo Vecchio and the Uffizi Gallery.

The Palazzo Vecchio, once the home of the powerful Medici family.

We continued on our walk until we hit the Duomo. The outside of this church is stunning, and unlike any church we had seen thus far. It is covered in pink, green, and white Tuscan marble and decorated in the New-Gothic style

The inside of the Duomo, however, is a bit underwhelming. We were a little disappointed with the bare walls!

But the most impressive part of the Duomo is Brunelleschi's dome. This was the first dome of the Renaissance period, and the model for the many domes to follow.

Across the street from the Duomo is the Baptistery. The Baptistery features the beautiful bronze "Gates of Paradise" designed by Lorenzo Ghiberti. The use of perspective in these amazing reliefs made the Bible scenes depicted look so realistic. There was a competition held to decide who would design the doors of the Baptistery. Ghiberti's design rivaled Brunelleschi's design and won the contest. However, because of Brunelleschi's loss, he was then free to design the amazing dome of the Duomo.

Next we decided to check out the San Lorenzo market. There were so many things I wanted to buy. But I resisted. So many beautiful leather things!

After walking around Florence we got some dinner, yummy pizza. Then we decided to do some night photography. We had just gotten a new camera. We upgraded to a Canon 7D and we love it!

The Ponte Vecchio at night.

We were trying to get to Piazzale Michaelangelo, which is big square on top of a hill that has an awesome view of Florence, but we got a little lost. Dallin thought he knew where to go, but we ended up walking up the completely wrong hill, so we had to then walk down this hill and then climb up the hill that the piazzale was really on. And by the way, this was at night time, in the dark. It was quite the adventure! But we finally made it, and the view was very much worth the trouble.

Florence at night.

This was our first crack at night photography. Not too bad, eh? Good thing we also just got Adobe Photoshop so I was able to tweak some of these also.

Day 2 in Florence was museum day! We went to the Uffizi Gallery and saw some amazing works. My favorites were the Botticellis.

We also went to the Accademia, which houses Michaelangelo's David. Seeing David was unreal, because he looks so real! The detail is so amazing, it looks like he could just suddenly come to life.

We weren't supposed to take pictures, but Dal snuck one on his ipod of me and David.

The Accademia also houses Michelangelo's Prisoners.

(Not my picture) These were cool to see because they are unfinished, so you could see Michelangelo's sculpting process. They make you actually realize that David really once was just a piece of rock.

After a day of museums we ate a delicious Tuscan supper at an authentic Tuscan trattoria. It was delicious. All of the food was so fresh and flavorful. Yum. Then we took a walk through Florence at night, stopping in the Piazza della Signoria to listen to an amazing guitarist play, "O Sole Mio" and other Italian favorites. It was romantic and lovely.

Day 3 we took a day trip to the nearby city of Siena. We had high expectations for Siena, because we had heard so many great things about it. It's a nice town, but we didn't find it too special compared to any other town in Italy. One exceptional thing about the town, however is the main square, Il Campo. We spent most of the day just sitting and people watching there.

Il Campo is pretty unique because each year the town holds horse races here. Thats why the square is shaped like an amphitheater. This tradition has carried on since the Renaissance, where each neighborhood of the town hires a jockey to be in the race and they each cheer on their own.

Dal basking in the sun, and me in Il Campo.

Me at Siena's Duomo. Looks similar to Florence's Duomo.

We got a delicious lunch at another Tuscan trattoria in Siena.

On the train back to Florence.

When we got back to Florence we walked back up to Piazzale Michelangelo to see the view in the daylight.

Beautiful Florence.

That night, I made dinner at our apartment and then we just relaxed because we were pretty exhausted.

The next day the apartment owner picked us up and took us to our car and we said goodbye to Florence. It was a lovely weekend in the birthplace of the Renaissance.