Moving on to Venezia...

On our second morning in Florence, we woke up with a plan to check-out, catch the first open-air bus to head over to Santa Croce and the Leather School. And for the first time this trip, our plan WORKED! YES!

We got over to Santa Croce a bit early, so we decided to walk around, take some pictures and look in some of the tourist-trap stores around the square. This is Tim walking down one of many side streets.

 I love the doors! They're all so different, but this one really stood out to me...

 This is Santa Croce, the church this whole area is named after.  It is the final resting place for many famous Italians, including Michelangelo and Galileo.

 Also in Santa Croce is the National Central Library, which is the largest in Italy. This is just one side, the front is HUGE!

 And I had to include some good ol' Italian graffiti...

 Here's a picture of us in front of the Basilica di Santa Croce...

Around the corner from the front is the Scuola del Cuoio, better known as the Leather School of Florence. I first visited this place in 2007, when I took a study abroad trip with my major and it is, hands down, the best place to get leather accessories in Florence.

To get to the actual school and their shop, you have to walk through a courtyard behind the Basilica...this is view: 

So why is this the best place to get leather accessories? Because you can get this embossed or stamped with gold/silver leaf!

 Tim got himself a passport cover...

 And we got our Dads wallets for Father's Day...let's just say this guy had to use a lot of "W" tiles!

 After finishing up there, we went back to the Duomo to see the inside. We caught a glimpse at a Japanese couple taking photographs on the steps...

 The inside is ginormous, but I think Tim and I both agree that the outside is the really fantastic part. This is the bell tower:

 Oh, and that's 100% marble!!

We grabbed some gelato, relaxed on the Duomo steps for a few minutes before heading back to our amazing hotel, collecting our bags and walking to the train station. Our next stop: VENEZIA!

Our next hotel was just awesome. Here we are on our terrace...yep, you read that right! Our room was on the 5th floor, separate from the rest of the hotel, with an outside entrance to a terrace overlooking the Grand Canal. SO.AMAZING.

 The concierge/front desk guy suggested we buy a 48-hour pass for the Vaparetto (water bus) and take that to explore the city. This the entrance to the Vaparetto stop that was about 100 steps from our hotel lobby. The "1" line is the most touristy line and stops at EVERY.SINGLE.STOP along the Grand Canal.

 Our destination for the evening was the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. For those of you who don't know Peggy Guggenheim's story, well, she was a bit nutty. She vowed, at one point, to collect 1 piece of art per day. Her family also has the Guggenheim Museum of Modern Art in NYC. This small museum is her former home in Venice. Only the first floor was ever completed, so that's the entire museum. We arrived 40 minutes before closing and had no problem seeing the entire collection. But I loved it! And we both loved getting a bit of "brain break" from the massive art museums we'd previously been touring.

 After running over to the museum, we decided to stroll back to the Vaparetto through some narrow streets and head to the Rialto Bridge area for dinner. The weather and timing was perfect for some pictures from the center of the bridge, looking down the Canal.

 Unfortunately our camera died right after this picture...in the hands another tourist who had offered to take our picture...FAIL! :-)

Our dinner that evening was so good and it really emphasized the value of freshly-prepared pasta.  I'm not a big pasta fan, but my tagliatelle pasta was beyond amazing.

Stay tuned, our next day proved to be one of the most adventurous of our lives...

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Firenze in the Rain

Before we left for our trip, of course we checked the weather report, and thankfully we were prepared for the rain. And, oh, did it rain!

It was a Sunday, so a number of places were closed, but we forged ahead despite all of this. Our first stop was the Piazza Republica and the famous boar. His nose is rubbed clean from everyone making wishes on it.

 We were heading towards the Uffizi Gallery, so we stopped for a few minutes under the covered walkway to take photos in front of the Ponte Vecchio.

 Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures inside of the Uffizi gallery, but we did take a last-minute guided tour that I swear I would have been completely lost without! "The Birth of Venus" by Donatello was probably the most well-known piece of artwork we saw on our tour, but there were a few more recognizable pieces in the collection.

After our gallery tour, we walked over to the Santa Croce church and the Florence Leather School. The school is located in the old monastery of the church, so despite being in such a well-known location, the entrance was hard to find.

 We ended up making plans to come back the next day to buy our gifts, but we  still had a good time trying to find everything in the rain. We were going to head back toward the Ponte Vechhio to look at the famous gold shops, but I had to have Tim take a picture of the rainfall.

 While I was standing there waiting for Tim to take the picture, I looked over and lo-and-behold, there was the Galileo Museum! The sign on the door said it was closed on Sunday, but when I got a little closer, the automatic door opened right up. I peered inside and someone was sitting at the ticket desk, so we went in! It was pretty empty, but was one of our favorite museums of the whole trip.

 AND when we finished up in there, the weather had cleared up!!

 Along the walkways around the Ponte Vecchio, couples have been hanging locks to celebrate their relationship/marriage. I think it is just so cool and was a little sad we didn't have a lock to hang. Maybe one day? (::hint:: Timmy - Return trip??? ::hint::)

 We browsed the gold shops along the bridge for a little bit, and then I asked Tim if we could head back to the hotel and dry off a little. Along the way, we stopped at Piazza Signoria, where the Uffizi Gallery has set up an outside sculpture museum.

 We headed back to the hotel and Tim spotted this sign and had to take a picture...

 As we were passing the Duomo, I heard Tim call out "Arianna WAIT! There's a rainbow!" And he was right, there was a beautiful, full rainbow arching over the Duomo. It was pretty amazing.

And, yes, if it sounds like it took a long time to get back to our hotel, you are correct. We made a lot of stops and when we did get back, it was nap time. That evening we headed to the train station to book tickets for our trip the next day to Venice and then tried to run to the Ferragamo Museum before it closed. We would have made it, but when we walked in the door, a nice sign was waiting to tell us it was currently under renovation. FAIL! We spent the evening shopping and had dinner at an "outdoor" cafe (it had a large tent up to guard eaters from the elements), before heading back to our hotel and relaxing for the first time during the trip.  

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Florence in a snapshot (or two)...

I hope these pictures from my phone tide readers over until Tim and I have a chance to sort through pictures this weekend. Enjoy!

They take parking seriously!

Obviously the pizza was delicious!

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Ciao Roma!

Our third day marked the end of our Roman excursion, but we couldn't leave without visiting a few more sites. Namely, the Roman Forum and the Colloseum. 

Tim and I have different ideas about how to pose in front of the Colloseum...

We had pre-signed up for second tour through Epic Roman Tours, a decision we do NOT regret! Again, our group was only 6 people and
It.Was.AWESOME.

This is the entire group on the way to our first stop, the Roman Forum, the heart of our tour. Here, our guide is explaining how the Roman empire expanded throughout the ages.

 After an unexpected (according to our guide) wait to get into the Forum, here's the central area...

 And this is the "newest" part, the Temple of the Vestal Virgins. I say "new," because it's only been open to the public for a relatively short amount of time.

We also learned the history of the Arch of Titus, which celebrates a, quite horrific period of time in Jewish history. I found two very surprising tidbits about the arch: 1) The Arc de Triomphe in Paris is based on this design and 2) This is one of the first pictures of a minorah and is the model for the menorah used on the emblem of Israel.

 Our next stop was the Colloseum, but the line to get in was around 1-2 hours. Fact: The ticket to the Roman Forum also gets you into the Colloseum. We didn't wait at all! Most people just go to the Colloseum first, whereas the Forum usually has no line.  And that is why a guide is important.

 Of course it wouldn't be a tourist attraction without dressed up characters...

 We spent about 45 minutes in the hot Colloseum before heading to the nearest Open110 stop to get dropped off closer to our next stop.

 Which was the Piazza Navona...

 and the Pantheon...

 By this the time we finished there, we had just enough time to run to the nearest Open110 stop and head back to the train station for our ride to Florence. Unfortunately we got the slowest-driver-EVER for the drive back.

Our train to Florence was pleasant and Tim managed to sleep for 80% of the ride, a trend that would continue for the rest of the trip. Once we got to Florence, we were off to find our hotel.

We wandered through the streets until we saw this sign...

Yep, this was the only sign for our hotel! We even had to be buzzed into the building every time we came back! Here's the first lobby...

 The entire hotel was actually located on the 1st floor (in Europe, the floor numbers start with 0, so what we call the 2nd floor is really the 1st floor), so after lugging our bags up the stairs (Tim's idea, not mine!), we were able to check in. I'm not sure why, but we got a pretty amazing room. It included a four poster bed and this beauty:

 Why, yes, that is a frescoed ceiling!

Of course, we had to hit the ground running, so we found the local bus tour and got ourselves some tickets. Somehow we managed to time it perfectly for a tour up into the Tuscan hills above Florence, to a town called Fiesole.

 On our way back down, we got off at Michelangelo Plaza to watch the sunset over the city...

It was a great way to relax and end the evening...or so we thought!

After dinner and getting back to the hotel, I jumped online to check opening times for the museums in the morning. I googled the main pages for the Uffizi galleries and discovered that, that night was the "Night at the Museums!" All of the major galleries were open until 1am and were FREE! It was 11:00 and Tim was practically asleep, but I dragged him out of bed and we booked it down to the Accademia to see David without (hopefully) hordes of tourists.  Well, we hit the jackpot! Not only did we get in free, but there was probably less than 100 people in the entire museum. If Tim hadn't been falling asleep standing up, I would have gone over to the Uffizi as well!

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