Florence

Ah, beautiful Firenze. We arrived in Florence yesterday afternoon and immediately I was enjoying the slightly slower paced feel of the city, as compared to Rome.

After finding the hostel, we went to the Uffizi Gallery. To be honest, even with recognizing a lot of big names, I was not all that impressed by the gallery, but I suspect that has to do with my lack of an appreciation for Medieval and Renaissance art.

We walked through the markets for a bit and when I wandered into a leather store in search of gloves, I had the "sensual" experience of an attractive Italian saleswoman propping my elbow on a cushion, sliding the glove onto my hand and then checking to ensure that each finger fit snuggly. While I ended up buying my gloves later from a vendor in the market, it certainly confirmed the stories that I had heard about glove buying in Florence!

The next day we thoroughly enjoyed the free breakfast provided by our hostel (egg white omelette for me... hurray for protein!) and then set out to explore the Duomo (well, the cathedral part for now). After a brief wait, we had an excellent free tour of the inside, pointing out specific details of the architecture and the artwork. Truly a magnificent building.

Next we picked up lunch from a huge indoor market (think St Lawrence market) and then slowly made our way over to the synagogue and museum. The synagogue was built in 1874 and is enormous and very intricately decorated. Reminded me a lot of the one we just saw in Rome.

In the afternoon, we spent more time in the markets and then walked across the Ponte Vecchio (the only bridge not destroyed in WWII), and set out in search of the Piazzele Michaelango. What should have been a 10 minute walk uphill somehow turned into over an hour of hilltop walking. While the view was quite lovely, we are still baffled as to how we ended up so lost. We did make it to the Piazzale, which offered an incredibly panoramic view of the city. The gelato we ate was also among the best I've had this trip.. but maybe I was just hungry from the walking!

After crossing back across the bridge we went on a "self guided walking tour" of the facades of several churches (since everything was already closed).

(Edited here after last day in Florence...)
Today we split up for the morning and I climbed up the Duomo. While the lineup itself was short, the climb took a very long time as people stopped to take pictures and allow the people trying to get down to pass. The view from the top was outstanding and I also enjoyed the close up view of the paintings from inside the dome. Next I wandered by Dante's church as well as the Baddia. Inside the Baddia, white robed nuns and monks were in midst of silent prayer. After a few minutes, they all rose and began to chant in four part harmony. Impressive.

Met up with Jasmine and Winnie for the afternoon and I opted to skip the Accademia and see the small Leonardo da Vinci museum (much cheaper and no lineup!). Inside we saw a lot of models of da Vinci's creations and I was blown away by how much one person was able to achieve in his lifetime (artist, mathematician, geologist...)... One invention in particular, showing how the use of multiple pulleys makes it easier to lift heavy things (since the force gets distributed) made me wish that da Vinci had been around to teach me physics when I was studying for the MCATs!

In the evening we went out in search of live music as there is an arts festival in town. We started with an Irish chorale group called Gracenotes (which was terrific) and then heard a concert band perform outside of the palazzo veccio (also enjoyable). We even met a couple from Toronto, and the woman (named Amanda) happened to know many of my classmates! Small world.

Tomorrow we are off to Venice. Looking forward to it!!