Rewind: Florence

I know, it seems like we're racing through Europe, but that's exactly what it felt like at the time.  We raced through, which was in some ways good (we got to fit in a lot of sights) and in some ways it's tough (you don't have any time to really relax and do non-touristy stuff).  Oh well, I doubt I'll look back and wish I relaxed more.  Let's keep going!

Day 1

We arrived in Florence in the afternoon and we were wiped!  Not only was it super humid and hot, but we had walked our asses off and not slept well in days.  Not to mention, Aaron bought me some new sandals and as cute and expensive as they were, they cut my feet up and took forever to heal:

Gross!

Aaron decided to nap at the hostel after we checked in, but I caught a second wind and decided to go exploring.  I found The Duomo, a giant, beautiful dome about 5 min from the hostel:

I'm so bad at selfies.  I don't know why it's such a mystery to me, I just can't figure it out!

Old church:

Then I went and had dinner:

I had an assortment of crostini:

I didn't know until later that the brown glob was actually some sort of liver!  It was so good, it tasted like a really rich meat sauce, but it was actually liver.  I never really had a taste for liver, but I guess I do now.  The other brown one was olive and the red was tomato.  Then there was just a plain one with olive oil, which was pointless.  

Then I had beef with caramelized onions:

Delish!  Then off to bed.

Day 2

We woke up early and went to the leather market.  Leather is something Florence is known for and most of it is priced pretty reasonably, so we knew we had to go.

This guy had crocodile, ostrich and python belts.  

That actually made me kinda sad.  I don't know why I'm okay with leather, but not crocodile, ostrich and python.  I think I rationalize it in my head by saying we eat the cow, so it's good to use the skin for a purpose as well.  I know that's probably not how it works, but I hope it is.  Who knows, maybe they eat the crocodile too.  Okay, this is getting awkward, since we're walking through the leather market.  Let's just not think about it anymore.  They had gorgeous leather-bound journals (Ron Burgundy would be into it):

I got a purse:

Make sure your leather is stamped:

There's a tag on the inside too:

They had a giant building in the middle of the leather market housing a produce, meat and spice market.  It was all-encompassing.  If you want it, they had it.  Even if you didn't know you wanted it, they had it.

Olives:

Squid-ink pasta:

Penis pasta (you didn't even know you needed this!):

Nuts:

Dried incaberries:

Grapefruit?  I don't know why it's green:

Onto seafood:

Cheeses:

Meats:

Rabbit, maybe?

Truffles:

I got my mom some spice packets:

There was so much more than this, I just tried to post the weirder stuff.  They had all the normal fruits, veggies, meats and seafood as well.

Then we kept walking and went to Palazzo Vecchio and the piazza it was in was chock-full of statues:

Here's Palazzo Vecchio:

Random Asian dude (they're everywhere!):

Some of these statues are intense:

Then we walked to Uffizi, which is known as one of the most important art museums in the world (second behind The Louve) and while we didn't go inside, the outside looked huge:

That's a dude posing as a statue:

We kept walking until we got to the water:

Ponte Vecchio:

It's a bridge and all the shops inside are really expensive jewelry shops:

From there we walked to Palazzo Pitti, which used to be the home to the King of Italy, and now it's a museum with a bunch of random collections.  

It is humongous and to get through everything was exhausting.  The building itself is incredible on the inside.  The ceilings are exquisite.  We got our tickets (for access to the entire museum and gardens it was about 25 Euro):

I picked some random highlights of the collections because there is just WAY too much to post everything.  Just know each picture has at least 100 more variations.

Ceilings are ridiculous:

Those are old bones in there:

More ceilings:

This was my favorite:

It's just random busts made of tiny shells.  Super cool.

Aaron liked these:

Tiny ships made of big shells.  Amazing!

These were tiny carvings, so small I can't understand how this is possible:

They also had a costume jewelry section, a fashion section, and a china section, but let's skip to the art section:

Keep in mind, there were about 40 rooms of art.  I thought they would find my body somewhere in The Renaissance section and just kick me behind the base of a statue, with the rest of the people who had no idea what they were in for.  

We still have to check out the Boboli Gardens:

View of Florence:

 

View of palace from gardens:

Man, was it hot out there!  We have to get out of here now.  Museum overload!

We got a recommendation for the best gelato in Florence, and did I mention Florence is the birthplace of gelato?  So, essentially we're going to the best gelato place IN THE WORLD!

Okay, I might have hyped it up a bit, but it was sooo good!  I could tell the difference from gelato outside of Florence because it was just extra creamy here.  I got pistachio (my go-to gelato flavor) and Aaron got chocolate with Nutella.  My main goal in Italy: eat gelato every day.  Check!

Can't remember what church this is, but we saw it on the way back to the hostel:

This guy painting with chalk should be getting the big bucks somewhere (is there some sort of chalk convention he can go to?):

That's basically Florence.  We really liked it here a lot.  Many things to see and the city itself seems to have a bit of everything.  It was, however, probably the most humid place we visited (this and Rome), making it very difficult to walk around (which is the best way to get around, as everything is walking distance).

Next up: Rome!