Firenze One: Nathan

So, funny thing. Americans have an amazing capacity to change the names of things. Florence and Firenze are very different names, yet indicate the same place. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Anyway, we left Venezia (another name change) for Firenze early in the day and after dropping our stuff off at the hostel, we went to go look around the city. One of the first things I noticed upon arrival was something any passing Simpsons viewer should know about. I saw a six pack of Duff Beer. Of course, Jordan being who she is, didn't get the reference (not that she understood any Blues Brothers references at other times on the trip either).

After marveling at the Duff, we started walking around Florence. Florence isn't very big compared to many of the other cities we've visited and was very walkable and, unlike Venice, simple in design when it came to having to find things. We set off toward the bigger attractions: Il Duomo and the Uffizi Gallery, but first stopped in a market we passed between the Firenze train station and the hostel.

Firenze is known for its leather and tripe, bad place to be if you're a cow. In the markets, it's easy to find leather anything really cheap (although that's a matter of opinion, 50% of 400 euro is still 200 euro). Personally, I found some wallets as gifts.

The Uffizi Gallery is the more popular of the two stops so, we headed there first. On the way, we stopped at Il Duomo and the Baptistry across the street for some pictures. Of course upon arrival, we noticed just how popular the uffizi Gallery was. The line was long, but worse was that they weren't letting anyone in. We looked into ticket reservations, but they weren't worth the four extra euro that the Uffizi wanted, so we went back to the piazza and took pictures of all the statues, including a David (Florence has the real, 6 euro, and a couple fakes, free, to see). Then we headed back to Il Duomo.

Il Duomo is actually the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore. Like seemingly every church, cathedral, basilica, whatever, it is very well decorated with some amazing artwork from the Renaissance era. Entrance is free, but to climb up to the dome costs money, something we didn't have with less than a week left.

After Il Duomo, we wanted to go check out the Jewish quarter of Firenze, something highly recommended by the Chabadniks in Venezia. We didn't really want to see the museum, we actually wanted to go to services the next night (being a Friday and all). Much to our surprise, the Firenze Synagogue allows visitors without a lot of the hassle other synagogues require visitors to go through. All we had to do was show up. We also noticed the Firenze Chabad was having a free dinner. Even better! The Jews' favorite word is "free" and the only way to make it better is if you put the word "food" after it (well, "dinner" in this instance).

On the way to the synagogue, we noticed a record shop. We stopped in for a peek and found a sight that's very difficult to find in the states. It was all records! Old ones, new ones, 78's, 45's, wall to wall. Jordan was on the hunt for the Sgt. Pepper's album, so we walked over to the Beatles section and started browsing. Lo and behold, we found like 3 copies ranging from 23 euro to 290 euro. The discrepancy has to do with when and under which label the album was made. The 23 euro one was much more attractive, but we were both indecisive on what to get and how we would get it home, so we decided to think about that and come back Friday before services.

We continued our walking tour of the city and headed for Piazzale Michelangelo across the Arno River. Jordan said the view was just as good as the dome in Il Duomo but 6 euro cheaper (here's that "free" again). After a decent climb up some half ramp half stair hybrid, we were treated to a panoramic view of the city, which is almost entirely north of the Arno River. We could see many cathedrals and even the synagogue, which is much more elaborate than it sounds.

It was staring to get dark and we were wiped from the walking, so we decided to start making our way back to the hostel. Not far up the river from Piazzale Michelangelo is the Ponte Veccio. The bridge is similar to Ponte Rialto in Venezia but it and the street continuing north are lined with jewelry shops. We also browsed the more touristy and expensive Central Market on the way back.

Next is day two in Firenze.