Florence, Italy

Italy- Florence

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

3:51 AM

Upon arrival in the Florence airport I knew that things would be different from this point onward in our trip. The previous two cities we had been were smaller, and not super well-known so they were not overflowing with tourists. I've never been to Florence, but knew that it was a more popular European destination. Getting to the train station and walking out into the city, I knew my hunch was correct. We were not even close to the only people wheeling suitcases around a crowd. We somehow found our hostel, without the use of a map, and learned that we could leave our things there but not check in until 5pm. This was okay- however, we were really hoping to catch a mid-afternoon snooze. 

After changing our clothes we set off to explore Florence. It was immediately charming with the cobblestone streets and beautiful buildings. We found the river and saw many cute bridges- one that had shops literally on it. It was so cool! By this time we were famished and found the nearest restaurant to us. We signed up for an olive oil and wine tasting class later that afternoon, and decided to waste time eating crepes and hanging out in the plaza by our hostel. The crepes were amazing and gave me the kick I needed to keep making it through the day. As it was nearing time for our lesson we began heading off in the direction as told by a guide earlier. We waited outside and quickly figured out that we may be the only two in the lesson for the day. The chef of the company came down and confirmed our suspicions- it would just be the three of us. As we walked to the cooking studio we learned that our guide was born in Peru, then raised in Italy. He spoke four languages, and upon learning that we spoke Spanish made his own decision that we would get our lesson for the day in Spanish. Our wine and olive oil tasting lesson began with a brief explanation of how wine was made, then a little history about the wine from the Tuscany region. We then learned how to correctly sample wine- you swirl it around in your glass, smell it to pick out distinct flavors, take a small sip making sure it touches the tip of your tongue, then take a bigger sip swishing it in front of your teeth from one side of your mouth to the other. We got to try three different kinds of reds- two younger wines and one older. As I generally like wine- I liked them all. Our teacher then went into explaining the manufacture of olive oil and how it was produced in this region was well. He taught us how to properly taste oils which was extremely strange to me. You put a very small spoonful in your mouth in between your top and bottom teeth and then would open your mouth, and breathe in deeply casting air through your teeth. I was pretty weirded out by the notion of putting a spoon full of olive oil in my mouth, but did it anyway. It was so interesting! For the first time ever I could pick out the actual flavors of olive oil! He gave us traditional bread which is completely unsalted, cheese to try with a different gel-like sweeter oil (my favorite), and gave us a little desert of a harder biscotti like cookie to dip in a sweet wine. We talked for quite some time- our guide was extremely kind and answered all of our questions. It was a fun afternoon, but by the time we left we were definitely ready to check into the hostel and get off of our feet. We ended up getting our own room, and I took a brief nap. We woke up starving after not having much of a lunch, and a few little pieces of bread and cheese. We followed a recommendation by our lesson instructor to his favorite pizza place and loved it! It was starting to get late, so we ended up just walking around the city at night with gelato in our hands for dessert. I'd forgotten how much I loved Italian pizza and gelato- and how easy it was to consume mass quantities of it from when I was in Rome. After this we headed back, read a little, and crashed as we had an early train the following morning to Cinque Terre.

After Cinque Terre….

Returning to Florence, once again we couldn't check in until 5. So, Claire and I decided to immediately grab food as we had an early day thus far. From my friend Emillie who'd been to Florence a few years ago, we were recommended to go to Gusta Pizza. We had tried Monday, but for some reason it was closed. We went and it was no let down. It was incredible. I wasted no time chowing down my margherita pizza- and for only $5. After this we did the usual and grabbed Gelato and sat and ate it on one of the Florence bridges in the sun. It was a brilliant day- we loved it. We sat there people watching and taking in our surroundings for quite some time before we kept on. After this we set out to check out the leather market. Florence is well known for their high quality leather and lower prices- we definitely took advantage. You're welcome, mom. 

Next we stopped in a café to grab coffee as we were starting to feel drained. It was exactly what we needed, and from here we went to our next destination: The Art Institute where the famous statue of David created by Michelangelo was displayed. We looked at other art work, but nothing really compared to the statue. We looked at it cumulatively for about 40 minutes from each angle. I found the perspective of it fascinating- that Michelangelo made the stone and sling barely visible to the eye. Usually when David was pictured after his famous victory over Goliath he was shown with standing with one foot on Goliath's head triumphant. In this depiction, he still looked triumphant, but with the stone and sling minimized along with the absence of Goliath head, it is said that Michelangelo intentionally wanted to demonstrate that intelligence had won, not brutal force. I found this completely captivating. By the time we completed this we could check into our hostel. We rested briefly for an hour, then shamelessly went back to Gusta pizza. It was just as marvelous as the first go around. After dinner we went back to our hostel where we hung out with all the people in our hostel. It was crazy- there were two girls from Ohio, two girls from Minnesota, and a girl from Kansas. The others were from Canada, Australia, and California. However, we enjoyed our little midwest gathering- so far we had only met people from the US coasts. Everyone had such a cool story and travels. We loved talking to everyone, we all had such a fun night together. However, once again we had yet another early flight so our alarms were set at 5:30 to head to Oviedo.