It’s a telling moment in your life when you are forced to decide whether it’s even worth going to sleep in the morning. Will you wake up? Will it just make you more of a wreck? This morning we decided one hour of sleep was better than nothing. Good choice I would say. Compliments of the responsible roomie in our apartment, we managed to get our unshowered booties up and out to catch the first bus of the morning over to the train station.
As soon as we arrived in Florence it was as though we’d had a full nights rest. I mean, we were in Florence. This was no time to be sleepy! Walking the streets was like seeing one postcard after another. Woops! There’s a cathedral! There’s the Duomo! There’s David! Complete. Sensory. Overload.
After a bit of searching, we finally located our first hostel. It was definitely a little smelly and the owner had perhaps forgotten what hygiene felt like, but for the location and a comfy bed it was perfect.
After checking in, we decided to wander. No itinerary… just see what we could find. It was probably the best way to see Florence. We found the river, followed it to the Ponte Vecchio, wandered across it, wound up in a park and outside of the tourism sphere, dodged some puppy poo and took in the view. After chugging a few gallons of coffee we went back to the Duomo to catch the sunset from the top and stayed there for a couple hours. Staring down at Florence as it grew dark and city lights began to twinkle was something I’ll never forget (don’t worry, I have about 100 photos of it just in case).
That night, we tried our best to avoid the Americans and their Soulja Boy dance parties and found a Rolling Stones cover band in the basement of a club down one of the side streets. Perfect. Now it’s bed time.
The next day was Uffizi day and what a day it was! After a fabulous interaction with the ticket booth lady, in which I smiled and nodded a lot and she said a lot of words I didn’t understand, I somehow ended up with free entry into the museum. Nice. And no, I have no clue how I pulled it off. I could have spent a good portion of my life wandering through that building. The artwork was breathtaking and every room and ceiling was a work unto itself. It was absolutely incredible to be stopping to view the Botticelli and Caravaggio and oh goodness… just about everything.
Afterwards, we popped in some shops since January is the month of sales in Italy. Found an amazing record store packed to the ceiling with Jimi Hendrix and every Beatles album you can imagine. Grabbed some delicious gelato and eventually made our way on back to the train station, chugged back to Perugia and took the most amazing shower of my life.
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