We had museum tours booked for the afternoon and started our morning with a self guided/Rick Steve's walking tour. We started walking from the train station to the Duomo, Florence's most visible and largest church.
We walked our way through Florence with intermittent downpours to see the major sights in the city, although some places were closed because the next day was a holiday. We saw the outside of the Orsanmichele Church, Palazzo Vecchio, the Uffizi Courtyard and Ponte Vecchio.
 |
| We saw the original David later, but this was his original home. |
 |
| Ponte Vecchio in the background |
 |
| The view of the bridge, Ponte Vecchio, from the 3rd floor of the Uffizi Gallery. |
 |
| Ponte Vecchio, filled with shops, mostly jewelry shops. |
 |
| The view down river. I don't know if the Arno River always this dirty or if that was because of the torrential downpours. |
After that we toured the Uffizi Gallery - which was a completely awesome art gallery that walks you through the renaissance as it developed. No pictures allowed though. After that we toured Accademia, which is famous for it's star statue: Michelangelo's David. Also no pictures allowed.
Once we were finished with our museum tours we were exhausted and soaked through from the now steady rain. So we caught an earlier train back to Rome. We met some friends in the lobby of our hotel and went out to dinner. After dinner, a little shopping and then early to bed because we had an early train to catch the next morning. We liked Florence, it was clean and people were friendly. It was just unfortunate that it was so very rainy the day we were there. I guess we'll have to go back and explore it a little better!
(P.S. Even though it was a miserably wet day - are you catching on to that yet - it was still a great way to spend halloween.. i.e., a great way to avoid it!)
Hmmm... I think my favorite picture is of the bridges over the river from the Gallery. So lovely! You've got some amazing pictures and I love looking at them.
ReplyDelete-LIsa