I know I said I would update 2 days ago but…. well….. ok i’m lazy. I know I’ve kept everyone waiting for the climactic ending to the saga of sheena’s week off so I hope you all enjoy.
Chapter 1: Firenze (Florence) / ass backwards museum
We arrived in Florence on Friday morning. As always the first thing to do is to make it to the hostel so you have a base of operations, aka a place to throw your crap while you walk around. Being the king of directions as I am we had no problem making it. On our way there we passed the massive duomo, its absolutely impossible to not stop in your tracks when you first see it and look up at its glorious beauty. Also just a point of interest, its absolutely impossible to get a really good picture of the duomo unless you get one from above because of how closely surrounded it is by other buildings.
We walked past the duomo and the ponte vecchio, and made it to our hostel right across from the Palazzo pitti. Was totally shocked that it was actually there, seemed awfully close to the hostel. We made our way up the apartment building and to our surprise our hostel was more a hotel than anything. We were given a room to ourselves a queen bed a bathroom with a shower, cabinets and drawers. It was pretty sweet. Definitely the best deal I’ve ever gotten. Sheena was so enthralled with it she took a massive amount of pictures. I decided that I was going to unpack our bag on the bed. Oh no, can’t do that, Sheena has to take 12 more pictures of the bed, so I have to hide all our belongings from view haha.
We went back to the duomo, once again amazed by the size and beauty of it…. that was before we went in. So you would think that the beauty of the outside would be matched by the inside, apparently not. I think all the effort went to the outside because the inside was def bare bones, very disappointing. We then decided to go into the baptistery which is right in front of the cathedral. It costs 3 euro to get in, not bad at all and inside the entire dome is a golden byzantine mosaic. Really pretty and made up for the duomo being basically empty. Yeah massive byzantine jesus was very impressive, also I don’t think you’ve made it as a church until you have your giant byzantine jesus, it seems every big church here in italy has one.
Next we made our way to the Piazza della Signoria, where florence’s multitude of statues are on display, the more famous ones being replicas (originals are in museums… where you can’t take pictures). Some of these include Michelangelo’s David and the Rape of the Sabine Women.
After our time in the piazza, we grabbed a bite to eat and checked out the ponte vecchio. Its a pretty cool bridge the most interesting part being that stores were built on the bridge and are partially held up by pieces of wood. The funniest thing being that all these stores that look like they could fall into the river at any point are jewelry stores. I’m joking they don’t really feel like they’re gonna fall over but it is really funny to see the pieces of wood for support.
From Ponte Vecchio we decided to go to the galleria del accademia which houses the real David along with some incomplete Michelangelo sculptures. The real David was really impressive, even more so than seeing the copy in the Piazza. It’s housed under a dome built specifically for it as well as behind glass that comes up to the base of the statue. Its really inspiring and we sat there and just looked at it for at least 15 – 20 minutes. The other nice thing to see were the incomplete statues of marble he had worked on. They were all in various stages some had most of it sculpted without smoothing while others had maybe a torso and an arm. Really cool to see. I was def disappointed that we couldn’t take pictures, but oh well. Other than that there’s not much to be seen in the museum so really you’re just paying 10 euro to see the David. Was it worth it? Definitely. Do I feel like they’re trying to scam you a bit? Definitely. they know you’ll pay and you do. Also I love that you can’t take pictures but they can sell you a postcard of it and the other overpriced mumbo jumbo crap they have in they’re store. To be honest though it is a lot nicer to be able to appreciate the work without feeling like your in a pool of paparazzi like when you see the mona lisa.
After that we called it a day and went back to our luxurious hostel. Next morning we got up at 7:30 so that we could make it to the Uffizi (home to the birth of venus) when it opened at 8:15 without the long wait. Now heres where the bitching begins so if you don’t wanna hear it don’t read.
Walking to the Uffizi I’m booking it knowing that the line has to have already started. Florence at this point is practically empty so we stop and take pictures on the Ponte Vecchio, knowing late it will be crammed full of tourists, and by crammed full I mean you can’t walk without tripping over someone, its even more crowded than florence was and florence is full of little streets. Sheena of course makes the comment that its so early no one will be there. Oh how wrong she is and how i knew it. We show up and of course the line is started. Its 8:10 at this point. We’re probably lucky guests number 200 so were about half the length of the building from the entrance. 8:15 rolls around doors open… or do they. No movement. 8:20 and the line starts to move ok were gonna get in until suddenly after moving about 5 feet we stop. The line’s halted. Whats going on. Oh thats right you can reserve tickets so you don’t have to wait in line. What does this mean? It means that for 4 dollars the day of or before you reserve a time to enter the museum. What does this do. This stops the regular line to allow the reservation people in. No it wouldn’t make sense to have 2 doors one for reservations one for the regular line. So every 10-25 minutes the real line moves about 5 feet. Ridiculous. You know how the louvre works. The most famous museum in the world? You know how that works, you walk right in. The line moves swiftly. Everybody’s happy. I don’t understand this museum at all. It’s absolutely ass backwards the way the line works. It took us til about 9:15 to get in. At this point you go through security which consists of 1 security guard and 1 metal detector, now I understand why its so slow because a museum which brings alot of visitors decides hey we only need on entrance and one detector why should we accommodate for all the visitors we have? They’re gonna come anyways whatever. Ridic. The museum itself was nice so at this point the bitchings over. But for real the Louvre you just walk right in, come on now, get your shit together Uffizi. Also I don’t wanna hear any oh you should have reserved then. Fuck that I’m not paying an extra 4 euro to get into a museum.
The Museum was actually very nice, it was great to see the birth of venus and some Caravaggio raphael and other renaissance paintings. One of the more interesting works was an unfinished painting by Da Vinci. It was still in its pencilling in phase so no paint had been applied yet, its always cool to see stuff people were working on but didn’t complete. I really liked the museum though. It was probably the best experience I had in Florence. Also just so everyone knows. The Birth of Venus, not as bright as you think, theres def some levels adjustment being done in photoshop in those art history books, still a great piece tho. It’s another museum that I wish allowed photographs.
Here’s some pictures of Sheena and I on the Ponte Vecchio in the morning.
Chapter 2: Pisa
If you’ve made it this far then I have to commend you. I shall now present you with the tale of a little city called Pisa.
We arrived in Pisa later that afternoon. After reading up on it we realized we wouldn’t need more than a few hours to actually see everything the city had to offer. We arrived at the small train station and started making our way to the famed leaning tower. After walking 5 minutes from the train station we come to the realization that its a ghost town. There is literally no one on the street other than tourists sprinkled in small clusters all walking towards the same thing. It was a vast difference between the streets of florence. Also pisa seemed dirt cheap…… my kind of town. On our way we found a gelateria and got 3 scoops for 2 euro, the cheapest I’ve seen in italy. It seems the only things open were gelateria’s and a few cafes. I can’t blame the place for being dead though. It was the holiday and I’m sure no one wants to spend they’re holiday with a tourist attraction in their backyard. Anyways after walking through the ghost town we see the tower.
It was def a sight to see. Well worth the trip. Sheena was dead-set on climbing it as well until we were told the price. 15 euro. What does 15 euro buy you? 30 minutes in the tower that includes the climb up and down. We kindly declined they’re offer, figuring all we would be able to see from the top was the dead city of pisa. Not to mention the eiffel tower cost 9 euro. I don’t know whats up with italy sometimes. To be honest I’m not disappointed at all that I didn’t climb it and I know Sheena’s not either. I might have paid it had it not have been for the time constraint. Of course we did our holding up of the tower pictures. Then we paid to get into the cathedral. Amazing. Absolutely beautiful inside. Probably the most impressive Cathedral I’ve been in.
yeah it's leaning
the entire complex
inside the cathedral
After that we kinda walked around the site, looked at some touristy shops, and headed back. On our way to the train station, we each got a huge slice of pizza for 1.50 each. Um absolutely great. It was so tasty I contemplated going back for another piece. It was really odd that good food was within walking distance from the tower, seeing as your always warned not to eat around tourist spots. It was really good, and pisa was a really fun afternoon trip, but I wouldn’t recommend staying there for an entire day. I don’t know what you would do. Total time in pisa: 4 hours, just the perfect amount.
Chapter 3: Rimini
Our last day on Sheena’s holiday we went and chilled at the beach in rimini. The beach was quite different than what you would expect. The beaches here are privatized so for the most part you pay whoever owns the part you wanna chill on. Very interesting. Also each plot of the beach has a number and a design reminiscent of the entrance to some sort of carnival. The poster for rimini should give you an idea of what I mean
It was a pretty relaxing end to an adventurous week.
And that is that. Sorry for making you wait so long, I hope it was worth the wait. This weekend we’re off to Rome I’m sure I’ll have some stories when I come back (I’m sure one of them will be about sheena packing on saturday morning instead of friday night). Also I know i don’t have any photos of Greece up yet but they’re coming just be patient. I’m not gonna make any promises on when they’ll be up because that just means you’ll be disappointed when they’re not there that day. I hope you’ve enjoyed story time today, until next time you’ll just have to get your thrills somewhere else.
-D.
