Florence - Day 1

I had a lovely cream filled pastry and some wifi time at a cafe to start my day off. I wish I had taken a picture of the pastry because it had a cool patterned top, but my stomach vetoed the potential delay of putting food in my mouth. Next, in an effort to beat the heat and the crowds, we decided to start at the Duomo. We climbed about 450 stairs to get to the top

(where we were hot and in the sun, but over looking all of beautiful Florence).

We stayed at the top of the dome as long as we could bare the intense heat. We resurfaced at the bottom surrounded by the crowded that had accumulated during our time at the top.

The outside of the Duomo was more beautiful than the inside in my opinion.

With its accompanying bell tower or Campanile.

This building as a whole is huge.

After what felt like being on a stair master for 30 minutes we treated ourselves to some fresh fruit (what?! I know!! Real fruit!)

The kiwi was out of this world!! We took the short walk over to the Galleria degli Uffizi, which has more Florentine Renaissance art than I knew was possible! Some of the pieces were from 1200. The Birth of Venus was also fun to see. After a long line and lots of art we were starving. We found a little cafe with veggie sandwiches for 3,5 euros.

(Back center one for me.) We had to follow it up with gelato of course!! Tied for best gelato so far. I just did a shot in the dark and ordered three flavors that looked good and Italian. So I ended up with...

Amaretto,

Cremino (with the chocolate cover) and

Mascarpone! I inhaled it.

I'm not even sure which flavor was which. While we have covered a lot of Florence's must do's one very big one was still standing out (other than the David, that's for tomorrow); leather. We head off to the leather market. It smelled amazing and the leather here really does feel better. Magdalena and us had already decided we weren't going to purchase anything so we went back to the hostel to rest our feet while Paige and Arin set out on a 4 hour jacket producing excursion. Their jackets are to die for so I'm glad I didn't tease myself. During our down time Magdalena and I researched some good restaurants and found Cafe Duomo which offered bruschetta, salad, lasagna or spaghetti with bolognese and a glass of wine for 10 euro. Pretty good deal if you ask me!

It was amazing to get some vegetables in my system!

The lasagna was just amazing! So creamy and the perfect size. Not to mention our view lived up to the cafe's name.

I still hadn't had a cannoli since I got to Italy so Arin and I split one.

I'm glad I tried it but honestly it wasn't my favorite. We wandered around till it finally felt cool enough to try to go to sleep.