florence: day two

On our second day in Florence, we discovered two of the best things about our hostel: free breakfast and cheap bottled water. After a quick meal, we headed out to see the Duomo, Florence’s famous gothic cathedral built with pink, green and white marble on the outside and the third longest nave in christendom on the inside. Formally named Santa Maria del Fiore, the Duomo is also one of several churches in Florence designed by the famous Florentine, Filippo Brunelleschi. We enjoyed the shade, but decided not to pay the extra fee to climb to the top of the dome.

We then moved onto our second church of the day, Church of San Lorenzo. The outside was not quite as fancy as the Duomo (not much could be though). Inside we got to see the tomb of Donatello. On our way to lunch, Corinne and Anne decided this was the perfect time to buy one of the many leather bags being sold by street vendors on just about every street. They both got great deals on their bags -- Anne was the best negotiator of the bunch. We then ate lunch and went to Accademia. We had been told to make a reservation ahead of time, which we thought we had done. When we arrived at our “scheduled” time, we were told that we were not on the list and our reservation had not gone through. Luckily the line moved fairly quickly and we were able to enter without a long wait. Inside, we saw many of Michelangelo’s works including the statue of David. The statue is enormous and overwhelming (in a good way). The trip to this museum was worth it just for this statue. It was beautifully sculpted from every angle, even though Chip thought his hands were not proportionate. There was also special musical instrument collection and a exhibit of Robert Mapplethorpe photographs whose subjects were remarkably similar to the sculptures throughout the rest of the museum -- very impressive.

After a long, hot day we made it back to our very hot hostel. Luckily, the owner decided we looked pathetic enough and gave us an extra fan for the room which was helpful. We rested before trying out the hostel’s free dinner (in addition to our FREE breakfast). We had our choice between various pizzas, pastas, and salads and they actually weren’t bad! We spent the night playing card games in the hostel’s open air courtyard and later ventures out for some late night gelato to cool off before going to bed.

~Corinne, Nick, Anne & Chip