Firenze Part Due

So I am very fortunate to only be a about 2 hours away from the beautiful region of Toscane (Tuscany) and I have been able to visit Florence twice now. It is a beautiful city, really. When I say you should visit it at some point in your life, I am not exaggerating! It has more of a big city feel than Verona does, but it is just as picturesque. I still have not visited all of the wonderful historical sites there are to visit there, but then again I am going 2 more times while I'm here. 

This last visit was even better than the first, mostly because of the weather. It was probably about 60 degrees and mostly sunny....perfect for exploring the city. We ventured towards the famous bridge "Ponte Vecchio" which literally means old bridge. Our main adventure for the day was making it up to Michelangelo's Piazza. It is about a 20 minute hike from the Uffizi Art Gallery,  but totally worth it! The walk itself is beautiful, but when you get to the top you have a breathtaking view of the entire city. The piazza is well known and there are a lot of tourists, but you can still get lost in the incredible scenery as if there was no one there but you. In the center of the piazza is a replica statue of the David, and if you are standing with your back to him, you have a perfect view of the Duomo and many other famous landmarks. To his left, there is beautiful green farm land on the hillside, which was actually my favorite part to look at. To his right was more gorgeous Tuscan countryside with villas dotting the mountains. I think that if you can visit nothing else in Florence, just being at the top of this hill and taking in the beauty of the city on a sunny day would be enough to satisfy!

I feel like the best way to find things are to just wander in a city and get lost. It's amazing what you can find! We did this all day Saturday and ended up in a Monastery that has a hidden leather school. Of course it was all much to expensive to buy, but it was a really cool place to stumble upon. It wouldn't be a trip to Florence without haggling with the vendors in the street markets, so we spent a good part of our day arguing prices. I've gotten to be very good at it and I think I'll be really sad when I get back to the US and can't knock off a couple dollars from prices. I don't think cashiers would care if I said, "That's too expensive, I'm not paying that much". I'm pretty sure they'd just let me walk away empty handed and think I was crazy :)

We also stumbled on a Mexican restaurant called Tijuana that was really good! The Italian cuisine has been incredible so far, but sometimes you just crave a pile of nachos instead of pasta and in this case it hit the spot!

That's all for Florence for now. I'm sure I will have more when I visit again :)

Ciao for now!