Destination 3: Florence

Next is was off to Florence.. just a short 3 hour train ride! We stayed at Katti House... a hotel owned by a mother and daughter, so we thought that was appropriate! We went to Accademia and saw Michelangelo's famous David statue. It is gigantic and does look perfectly sculpted. You can't take pictures of the real thing, but below is a copy that is located in the square where David was originally placed.

We realized quickly that Florence is has much more of a city feel than Venice, with lots of Florence "kamikaze" motorcyles (as mom calls them) buzzing around!

Florence has the best gelato, so we ate it at least twice a day! We saw the Duomo, or "cathedral" and did some shopping!

Duomo

We also hate some delicious tortellini for dinner... though we were shocked when there were only 4 tortellinis in the entire dish... guess we are just accustomed to the huge American portion sizes. Dessert was bigger than dinner... 4 types of gelato, including "kiss"-- our favorite... It was a light chocolate with nuts.

For our second day in Florence we took a 3 hour walking tour, and our guide was a native English speaker so we could understand her perfectly! She told us all about the Medici family and the start of the Renaissance in Florence.

The Medici Coat of Arms

In the afternoon, we went to the Uffizi Galleria, the other famous museum in Florence. Lots of work by Leonardo and Raphael, but nothing as cool as David! We ate dinner at Il Latini, a restaurant recommendation from my boss. Apparently it is quite popular since when we arrived there was a line of people waiting outside. We chatted with another American couple and ended up having dinner with them. They were on their honeymoon! They just kept bringing us food.... it was ok, but I think I prefer to choose what I get to eat!

Next... to Pisa!