A Florentine foray: not a bad way to kick off my personal travel itinerary for the semester. My suitemates and I have now mastered the 6:30 AM apartment-wide wake-up call, ticketless boarding on TrenItalia and the ideal napping position on the oddly concave seats of Italian train cars. When we awoke from our groggy slumbers upon arrival at Firenze Rifredi midday Friday, we were tremendously excited to embark on our first self-planned excursion. This eagerness was quickly tempered by our realization that we had absolutely no idea where we were in relation to where we would be staying. Luckily, Sara's fluency in Spanish translates to expert Survival Italian and, after asking upwards of five random Florentine natives how to get to the city center, we navigated ourselves to the Duomo and then broke out some Mapquest directions to Hostel Veronique, primely located right next to a covered leather market and just minutes from the city's most famous museums.
Thankfully, we made sure to satisfy our educational activity quota in advance by purchasing tickets to the Accademia and the Uffizi galleries. We first ventured to the Accademia to scout out Michelangelo's renowned David sculpture, which was hands-down everyone's favorite artwork on the trip. The 17-foot-tall marble statue was exquisitely carved and perfectly rendered such intricate details as the veins in the upper arms and the curvatures of each kneecap. We followed up the sculptural tour with a visit to the Uffizi, Italy's most famous and most visited art gallery, where we made sure to see Botticelli's Birth of Venus. Not going to lie, I am not the most well versed when it comes to art history, but this semester is teaching me a thing or two and I am glad we hit the artistic must-sees!
Friday evening, Megan's Rick Steves' guidebook led us to a trattoria just a few minutes from our hostel where I munched on a delicious traditional antipasto with mouth-watering sliced meats, light cheeses and olives, then followed up with lasagna layered with decadent bechamel sauce. After some perusing through downtown and scoping out the nightlife, we called it an earlier night, knowing that we had to get up at a reasonable hour to get in line for the Duomo the following day. Though we spent around an hour waiting come morning, Florence's famous cathedral did not disappoint, its interior sparsely decorated, but radiant in architectural glamour nonetheless.
However, despite our pride in all of the killer sightseeing we accomplished, the girls were all happiest to hit the famous leather market downtown where we put our bartering skills to the test for the majority of Saturday afternoon. Chocolate brown calfskin jackets, a rainbow of shoulder bags bearing Firenze's fleur de lis logo (also one of Kappa's mascots, a sweet reminder of my sisters at Emory), lambskin wallets, pocketbooks in every color and texture, an overwhelming display of goods that screamed, "Ditch your budget! Buy, buy, buy!" And buy we did, although we learned to bargain with the shrewdest of salesmen, pulling off the faux walk-away and "That guy offered me a better deal" measures expertly. I ended up snagging a streamlined leather jacket with rocker edge for under 100 euro by the trip's end, a hard-won purchase I know I will always treasure.
Saturday night, we enjoyed "Wine Town," a festival where one could purchase a "credit card" with five points to be used at several of the 15 participating restaurants serving various regional wines. After we finished sipping, we stopped for some photos of the Ponte Vecchio before heading to Sant'Agostino 23, a dinner spot serving local "slow food" that did not disappoint. Memorable dishes included an intriguing appetizer containing zucchini, mozzarella, bready pastry and anchovy paste, a fantastic carbonara, a palate piquing squid ink pasta and the fluffiest of cheesecakes (this coming from the dessert connoisseur). After all was said and done with dinner, we went to space. Okay, not actually...but we did make our way to Space nightclub, a flashy discoteca a short walk away from our hostel. From the hundreds of waving glowsticks to the elevated dance platforms, the swarm of people bathed in neon light to the old Usher throwbacks, the experience confirmed that Italia knows how to do nightlife. I definitely prefer burning off calories during a dance party to hitting the gym, not that there are any traditional American gyms in all of Italy (I need to find the magical beautifying/slimming device that all of these Roman/Florentine women are using; they, for the majority, are so effortlessly chic).
All in all, the trip was jam-packed with enthralling mini-excursions, an abundance of delicious gelato, and the recurring thrills of being in a new city. The entire clan agreed that Florence was breathtaking and we would love to return again, but that we are content to live in a larger city on a day-to-day basis with more ground to cover in the long-term. I realize that I have yet to share details about my classes (coming soon...I have less time to write about them, because the work is starting to pile up for them), but I will get some more newsy posts over to you all in the near future. And I obviously must make mention of my Mom, Dad, Aunt Lisa and Uncle Kevin's trip to Italia. Last week, I was lucky enough to enjoy several scrumptious dinners with the New/Moss crew and receive a top-notch tour of downtown Roma, including the Colosseum (finally). Most pictures below are courtesy of Megan, our apartment's expert photographer:
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| Posing by the Duomo our first night in town |
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| 80-flavor gelato shop = perfection |
Hoping to shoot more posts your way this week if time permits with the update on daily life here. If not, right after this weekend for sure. I always love hearing from you all so keep me in the loop and maybe we can orchestrate some souvenir selections from the Eternal City.
Con affetto,
Alexi
wow! ^^
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