Firenze (Florence)

Bongiorno! Today we are in Italy! We spent the day in the beautiful city of Florence. It was hot and crowded, but it was worth it.

We started out in an air conditioned bus. Our ride took two hours, Max froze to death and then there were only three of us. Okay that’s too far. Max was still with us. We were all blissfully unaware of how much we would long for the cold bus.

But let’s not complain. We’re in Italy!! We had a partial guided tour complete with radio/earbuds to hear our guide amongst the many other tour groups out there. She was smart, informative and friendly. We have been really impressed with our tour guides so far. After our tour we were left to our own devices for a few hours. We’ve always heard how beautiful the Duomo is in Florence, but words can’t really describe it. It’s one of those places that you need to see to fully appreciate. It’s like when you see the Eiffel Tower or the Empire State Building for the first time, you are impressed, yet it doesn’t truly feel like the first time you’ve seen it, because of all the exposure those buildings get on TV and movies. The duomo however, wow, it’s so amazing. It’s all marble, it’s in the gothic style and there are not only religious figures carved into the building, but important Italians as well. And let’s not forget it is HUGE. Max and I are sitting here trying to think of appropriate adjectives, because big  & beautiful don’t even touch it.

Oh and that isn’t the only amazing sight in Florence, no sirree. There is the piazza della signoria, the statue/sculpture garden, the ponte vecchio and of course there is “The David.” There are more beautiful churches such as the church of St. Croce which houses the tombs of several great Italians, such as Michelangelo. Interestingly the Church of St. Croce, a catholic church, was designed and built by a Jewish Italian man who happened to include a prominent decorative six pointed star on the front of the church.

So, we saw the sights, which were impressive to say the least. The lines were too long and our time was too short to go inside any of these beautiful buildings, but the outside of each building was a work of art in and of itself. After the sightseeing, we, of course, went to find some authentic Italian eats. Okay, I realize our blogs always mention food, but hello, we are in Europe, so of course we are eating like kings and queens. Mike and Madison split a bistecca alla fiorentina, which was a huge, ridiculously thick piece of steak. It was incredibly delicious. I know, as I had a few nibbles. Max and I each had our own pizza. Let me give you some inside info here: the restaurant where we ate has two specific chefs from Naples whose sole job is to make pizza. They also have two chefs from Sicily whose sole job is to make the homemade gelato. Mmm. Anyway, the food was accompanied by  wine for the adults and sucre pesca for the kids (what a relief to find out it was peach juice, using my sharp Italian reading skills I originally translated it to fish juice.  Dessert was obviously gelato for everyone, except me, I spied a cannoli in the pastry case and couldn’t resist.

After lunch we rolled out of the restaurant and did some more walking around and souvenir shopping. I bought a Pinocchio puppet (Pinocchio was originally created in Florence) & a Rooster pitcher. I’ve been obsessed with getting a rooster pitcher ever since I read a story about the Medici family and the roosters.

When we got back to the ship, we actually went to dinner. I don’t know how we fit more food in our bodies, but we managed to do so. This was the first night we actually ate in the dining room. We sat with a family from Ottawa who are fairly experienced “cruisers” and definitely better planners than we are. We picked their brains a little bit. We ended our evening with some hot tub/pool time. And now here we are getting settled in for the night. Tomorrow is another big day-Rome here we come!