Firenze and A Major Engineer Problem

Its my last morningi in Venice so I thought I'd write a little more about crazy Italy.

I managed to arrive in Florence from a train to Venice. I was pretty glad to leave Venice because there wasn't much to do there other than get lost in crazy alleys and canals and go to the Piazza San Marco. My plan was to go to Bologna instead of Florence, however I wasn't able to lock down any accommodation. So I'm a little bummed, but it wasn't like Florence was going to disappoint...!


I get to Florence and Im totally blown away. I reckon this place is much nicer and prettier than Venice. The architecture is very cool, its like stepping into a time warp to like the 17th century...totally amazing! I made my way towards my hostel which is to the north of Florence, when this girl yells out at me across the street. Shes in hysterics and is totally stressed out that she doesn't have a place to stay. So I ask her to follow me and we end up talking all the way and getting along really well. Luciana (or Lu for short) is from Argentina and she ends up being my travel buddy for 2 days in Florence...wow instant friends, praise God!



We head towards Piazza Duomo which has this massively old church in this huge square. It was all very cool and overwhelming. One of the annoying things is that there are heaps of street markets that try to sell you stuff that I could probably get in Australia. There are also street sellers who place their stuff out on a sheet/cloth and a lot of the stuff is fake, and is illegal to buy here. They were regularly pestering me to buy stuff. If you get caught by the police buying fake bags/watches/posters, you can cop a massive fine. So I found it amusing that these dudes quickly pack their stuff up in a huge sheet and walk very fast as soon as they see cops coming.


We headed towards Piazza San Firenze where it was another huge square. A massive palace is there where the royalty or governement use to stay (though I didn't go in) and there were replica statues of famous sculptures around the square. They were very cool to look at and I got to hang out there for around 2 hours, just sitting there with Luciana chatting and checking out these statues. Again, the architecture and scenery was amazing, and there were so many people going through the square....very busy. A lot of them were obviously tourists...



After checking out Piazza San Firenze, we walked onto the otherside of the river towards Piazza Michaelangelo. Apparently this square was designed by Michaelangelo and it took around 20 minutes to walk there, but it was a great walk as the view along the water was great. We reached the Piazza and the view was awesome. It was great to see the sunset over Florence and it made me really appreciate what God has done. We stayed up there for quite a bit because we were pretty tired after doing heaps of walking.






The next day, I managed to visit the Uffizi Museum, which contains various Italian sculptures and paintings. I got to see some great Botticelli works, some awesome Sculptures and a really interesting Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition which went through all the stuff he discovered, researched and develop (yep, good for engineers like me to learn about!). After visting the Uffizi, I spent most of the time walking around the city, checking out the streets....and obviously Itallian food, especially Gelato. Gelato here is quite expensive compared to Venice. Its a little hard for me to tell if it is better than Venice, but its still pretty awesome. The pizza here is OK, not awesome, and the coffee here is good but not consistently good.


Yesterday, I decided to take a trip with some dudes (2 Canadians, by this time Luciana left for Rome) from the hostel to Pisa. As you can tell by the name, I went and visited the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which is practically the one of the only things you can do there. It was pretty amazing to see the amount to slope there was on a tower. Apparently if you go up the tower, there are some bits that are really steep and some bits that are slightly inclined...all because of the 'lean'. The square that the Tower was in was really pretty and it had a baptistry and a museum we could've visited, but we didn't. It was also a very hot day as well, so I guess I'm working on a European tan by default...



Last night, we headed out on the town and I got to check out an Irish pub that many Italian's frequent. I got to meet some more dudes from the hostel and hang out with them and have a beer. I got to meet a very cool dude from Chicago who was also travelling alone and another chick from Melbourne who had been travelling 3 months straight, and had another 3 more to go! Well, today I head for Rome...so things are gonna get a little hectic, but very fun. But it should be very fun. I hope you guys in Oz are all doing very well and staying safe. Thanks for your emails, comments, support, and especially prayers.

Talk soon, I've got 15 minutes to get my train! :)
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