Back to Saturday night --> After the market we wandered around a bit before deciding to go back to our Airbnb to get ready to go out. I was a bit apprehensive about getting all dressed up because it was fairly cold out but a couple hours later we were all ready and out the door. We had lucked out with the location of our place because it turned out to be situated right in the local, artsy part of Florence. We had a fun time bar hoping and getting our fill of live music and gin and tonics. Somehow around 2:30 a.m. we all had a hankering for pizza and ended up at the worst place food-wise (only place actually open) and were probably very obnoxious, but everyone has nights like those. Unfortunately it turned out to be quite a long, cold walk home but we got to see everything at night which was beautiful. All in all a pretty great night! Sunday was our last full day in Florence. We started off with some breakfast at a corner café and then made our way to the Duomo. I don’ t know about everyone else but I was not prepared for the giganticness of the monument. It was enormous and seemed to reach the sky from where I was standing. The square was decked out in Christmas decorations and lights, which added to the magic of the scene. It is possible to climb the Duomo but the line seemed too long if we wanted to get other things done so we decided to skip the ascent. From the square we saw a Lindt chocolate store and after a short stop, we were back on track exploring. One thing I must say I love about Italy is its abundance of vintage clothes shops. We ducked into one and I walked out ten minutes later with a new hat. Man how I love Italy. From there we made our way to lunch at a place that we stumbled upon. Lucky for us, it turned out to be one of those hole-in-the-wall places where the owner is gruff and snarky but delivers a helluvah meal. We toasted the day over more sandwiches and wine and talked about how lucky we all were to be able to travel. I know, it sounds uber cheesy, but the great views combined with the wine had us feeling emotional. Sunset in the wintertime is around 4:30 p.m. and we knew we wanted to make it to the vista point by that time in order to take in the views. We found ourselves short on time and ended up racing up the hill with our lungs burning in protest. Good news: we made it. Not so great news: it was crowded as heck. It was still incredibly beautiful and we managed to run into a couple people from our school who were also spending the weekend in Italy. The rest of the evening was spent napping, eating pizza, and walking around a bit more. My friend Julia and I woke up on Monday and were out the door by 11 to catch our blahblah car. For those od you who don’t know, blah blah car is a ride sharing website that is super popular in Europe. The driver turned out to be a really nice guy named Giovanni who was a jazz musician and didn’t speak much English, but we made due with broken Italian and Spanish. He was so kind and even took time to show us Monteriggioni, which is a small village located between Florence and Siena. It was so small and quaint with it’s one hotel, one church, and one restaurant. They were hanging up Christmas decorations, and it couldn’t have been a more perfect time to take a pit stop. We arrived in Siena in the early afternoon and got dropped off at the bus station. It was quite a walk into town but we got to see a lot which was nice. We dropped our stuff off at the hostel and set out to explore the town. I had been to Siena once before almost 12 years ago with my grandparents so I was excited to be back and explore the area. We walked around and saw the different plazas and ended the night with some pizza and champagne sitting in front of the torre. The next day was our last day so we packed up early and left our bags at reception. Our bus tickets were for 5 p.m. and we wanted to get as much done as possible. The line to climb up the torre opened at 10 and we were there fashionably late at 11. Now, anyone who knows me well knows I don’t like heights very much, but I managed to climb every floor and we were rewarded with amazing views and pretty awesome pictures. When we got back down to the ground though our knees were definitely still shaking. We followed that up with a small picnic before taking a rest break to charge our phones and cameras. We took the last couple hours to walk around the outskirts and buy more pizza. Our bus ride back to Rome was uneventful except for a bit of rain. Four hours later we were in our hotel room, setting our alarms for early wake up calls for the flight home. All in all, Italy was amazing and I was so happy to have gone with such a great group of people. The food couldn’t have been better, the weather was phenomenal, and the timing was perfect – right before finals!
1 Comment
Glenda
12/27/2015 06:23:22 pm
LOVE that hat!!
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Amani P.Last fall I took off for a year abroad. Now I'm back in the states, trying to figure out this crazy thing we call life! Archives
February 2017
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