Joe, Vanessa, Candace and I went to Florence (aka Firenze to the Italians) this past weekend. It was fun; we saw Michelangelo's David and went in the Uffizi Gallery and saw some ballet/tango dance show at Teatro Verdi. All in all, though, Florence is worth about a day and a half. We got there about noon on Friday, checked into our hostel, and started sightseeing without a map or any real orientation. The Uffizi was pretty impressive; I'm glad that I can check seeing Boticelli's Birth of Venus off my list of things to do before I die. We weren't supposed to take any pictures, but of course the guards weren't really making sure people didn't, so I got a couple of Boticelli paintings. The Galleria dell'Accademia had some nifty half-finished sculptures by Michelangelo, but besides those and David, there wasn't much to see.
Climbing to the top of the Duomo was definitely the highlight of the trip. I'm pretty small, and I'm not claustrophobic or afraid of heights, but that climb had me hyperventilating. About half of the way up was a steep, winding staircase (without a rail) that was so narrow only one person could fit at a time. The rest of it was just as narrow and even steeper, but people were trying to come down at the same time we were going up. It was frightening. If you fell on those stairs, you were falling to your death or at least a broken leg or two. The view at the top, though, was worth the climb. Finally the clouds were breaking, and the sun was starting to set. Very nice, needless to say. I probably took 15 pictures of the same hill bathed in sunlight, but how many times are you in Florence at the top of the Duomo at sunset? After that, we stopped at a cafe/bar that--no lie--had a hot chocolate menu that was ten pages long. It was AMAZING. The cioccolato all'amaretto was the best hot chocolate I've ever had in my life; it put Ghirardelli to shame. I was ecstatic when Candace found a place in Rome that sells the same hot chocolate. I might go broke on that stuff...mmmm.
By Saturday afternoon, we decided we'd had enough of Florence and really wanted to go back home to Rome. If the hostel shower had been clean, we might have been persuaded to stay, but the lure of a clean shower, comfortable bed, and cheaper food in Rome was enough to make us hop a train back. That's the great thing about TrenItalia--your ticket is good for any time within two months, so you can go whenever you want. It takes about 3 times as long as Eurostar (the classy, speedy express train), but it's also probably 3 times cheaper. So that was our weekend.