A Little Culture…The Birthplace of the Renaissance
Just the name Florence is enough to evoke images of fantastic art and beauty. I never made it to Florence on my last trip to Italy and have kicked my self in the rear for this continually over the past four years. This time around though Helen insisted that we stay for five-six days – she’s been here before and insisted there was plenty of things to do to fill our time. She was right! I’m not really normally overly fond of big cities but this city is distinctly different and has the charm of a small-town. The streets are bikeable (as much as any Italian city) and everything that we could possibly want was walking distance from the hostel.
We started out our first full day in the city with a trip to the lush and expansive Boboli Gardens just on the other side of the Arno River. These manicured gardens did require an entrance fee that I begrudgingly paid. It’s hard for me to part with my pricey Euros after paying in fractions of dollars for five months but Jenn and Helen gave me a withering look that clearly told me to “stop being cheap and pony up the dough.”
We spent some time wandering up and down the lanes and finding the nooks and crannies of gardens that other tourists hadn’t wandered into yet so that we didn’t feel rushed. From the gardens there is a pretty spectacular view of the city with the Duomo (the largest and most ornate cathedral in the city and one of the iconic images of Florence) in the distance and the orangey-red tiled roofs spiraling out prettily from the cathedral and into the far distance.
One thing that the three of us agreed on was the fact that the last thing that we needed over the next three weeks was 300 pictures of us primly posing in front of major sites and attractions –with that in mind we found a long canopied aisle of trees and spent 45 minutes taking leaping shots with the camera set on continuous mode and then propped up on a ledge. Some of them were hideous but the ones that worked were amazingly awesome. The trio leaping shots were tricky because we all had to time ourselves together and with the camera taking the shots at five second intervals. We left finished the leaping shots sweaty, hot, and with smiles plastered all over our faces – we were thoroughly pleased with ourselves!
The rest of the Boboli Gardens features a lot of beautiful fountains, statues, and endless amounts of pristine gardens. There is also a museum complex in the grounds and the three of us were pretty captivated by the history of fashion exhibit on display. Photos were not allowed, so I can’t show you guys some of the really neat period pieces; there were also quite a few gaudy ones too…sequined bedazzled looking vests belonging to the 80s that were intricate and elaborate and marked a cornerstone of fashion according to the site.
After the museum hunger struck us pretty hard so we meandered our way back out (passing a Pegasus statue and by this amazingly neat face statue) and then hunted down a cheap lunch option. We are all pretending to travel on a budget right now (we only remember that fact when it suits us) so we ventured into a neighborhood area and found a small and quaint sandwich shop with bright-red juicy 
tomatoes, fresh cheese and a huge selection of sauces. We were all ravenous, but I think that fact only played a minor role in the fact that these sandwiches were simply amazing. I tried out a pretty standard flavor and focused on the deliciousness of the tomatoes, Jenn went with a ham and cheese (she’s got to get her meat where she can since she’s traveling with two veggies!) and Helen actually branched out and sampled the truffle sauce; she really enjoyed the truffles but they were a bit salty/olivey-esque for my taste buds to handle…but as they are an authentic Italian staple I am glad that I had a small taste.
Fortified by the food and gelato and no longer feeling mutinous (hey, that happens when three girls are hungry and are forced to make joint decisions!) we grabbed some shots of the Duomo. It’s really beautiful with the pastel green and pinks laid into the marble and because of the position of the Duomo we were able to gaze at it dozens of times on our way to the various other museums and sites around the city.
The Duomo Complex in Florence, Italy
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