Days 6 and 7

Day 6  (April 5, 2006)      Florence, Italy

The train ride was over and we got out at 8:00 a.m. at

Florence. Unluckily, someone from our group lost her passport and money by leaving it on the train. I felt bad and was glad it wasn't some one from my group.

We loaded our stuff on the bus and then started a walking tour of Florence. We met our guide and she gave us some facts about the city, like:

·       Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo hated each other.

·       The Medici family were the first known in the area. They used their money to improve Florence and created works of art.

·       They financed creators to come and make works like Michelangelo's David to enliven their city.

·       The Medici's also enjoyed science. They invited scientists to come and study/experiment in their palaces. Galileo built his first telescope here and Da Vinci worked on his helicopter idea here as well

·       The Medicis also loved music and hired quartets and quintets to play music. I think some musical instruments like the piano had prototypes first made here.

·       Florence is home to the third largest church in Europe (after the Vatican's church and one in England) which is the Duomo)

After the walking tour, the group went walking around and had lunch. We were all amazed at how much cheaper things were here than in Paris. I had a calzone and it was very “bready”.

We met again and got on the bus to go back to our hotel, the Hotel Piccadilly. We rested for about an hour and then walked down to take a tour of the Acadamia Museum. It is where the house the actual David and other paintings and such.

There were a lot of people in town because all week had no entrance fee for anyone to visit a museum in Italy. In a way to promote culture, the Italians were opening the museums to everyone for free, so students from other countries were taking advantage of this.

After we got back from the museum, we did some more resting before waking to our last stop of the evening, supper. We had genuine pizza, salad, and some delicious ice cream for dessert. After that, we all split up to see the night life of Florence, call home, or just get back to the hotel to catch up on some sleep and relaxation.

Day 7  (April 6, 2006)      Florence, Italy

Everyone slept in and got ready to go out and visit Florence at 9:30 a.m. The only thing scheduled was a visit to the Uffizi museum at 4:30.

The girls went shopping and so the guys were on their own.

We went to the market and explored. We bought some souvenirs and haggled for them. There was a lot of leather items, T-shirts, and small market items like watches and sunglasses there. The people who sold the watches and sunglasses were usually illegally doing it and as soon as they saw police, they would close up shop quickly and move away.

Then we continued towards the Pitti Palace, taking advantage of the free pass to museums. This was a home of one of the Medicis. There is a passageway from the Uffizi (which means office, where the Medicis worked) to the Pitti Palace across the river. It was used by the Medicis so that they didn't have to go among the common people. We didn't make it all the way up to the palace, but we did see the botanical gardens that were there. There was even a nice view of the city from there.

The city of Florence from the Pitti Palace

We walked back and tried to go to the anatomy museum, which was closed at 1:00 p.m. Bummer!

We walked back and had a nice meal at a restaurant that had a place for us to sit outdoors. Unfortunately, midway through our meal, a storm passed that produced a lot of hail. It covered the ground like snow for about a minute or two. We got off towards our meeting point, stopping for some gelato or ice cream on the way.

We went into the Uffizi galleries and got an hour long tour on the different paintings and stuff in there. After the tour, we looked around the museum. I saw the Leonardo Da Vinci exhibit and was amazed. It talked about all the different things he developed, from making math geometric shapes like hyperbolas and parabolas to how he mapped out the body. It shows how he mathematically figured out how to draw the human body based on circles and squares and their properties. I would have loved to spend more time there to see his other inventions and such.

We went from the museum to dinner, having a pasta starter and then veal with salad. Ice cream was for dessert. We walked back to the hotel and got settled in because we would have an early wake up call tomorrow. 

Exchange $100 = €78.