First Evening in Florence

Florence is one of my favorite cities I’ve been to.  I just returned from my second trip there, and I have so many amazing things to share with everyone!  After a little over a week in Italy I feel rejuvenated and even more inspired to travel!

I had a couple of bumps on my way there, but I finally arrived in Florence in the late afternoon.  My friend, Stacey, is studying abroad in Florence and was kind enough to let me visit her!  She met me at the train station and after a quick shower, we didn’t waste any time making our way around Florence!

Our first stop was Santa Croce, which I love.  However, the last time I went, I only went into the main church with all of the tombs.  It’s so beautiful and I felt so amazed standing in the presence of the tombs ofso many great thinkers and artists like Galileo, Dante, Michaelangelo, and Machiavelli.  This time when we finished looking in the church we actually took the time to walk around the other parts.  I had no idea there were other chapels, other tombs, an art museum and a leather shop, but I do now and it makes 5 Euro seem like a deal!  The art museum, although it’s not huge, had a lot of amazing art work.

After we took our time to really explore Santa Croce (which I would highly recommend to anyone visiting Florence) we decided to just wander around the city because the sun had set and Florence is absolutely beautiful at night.  We walked across Ponte Vecchio, all around to Piazza della Signoria and then we ended up in Piazza della Republica, where we decided to ride the carousel.  It was a ton of fun and we were the only people on there over the age of eight.  Stacey said she always walks past it and never could get someone to ride it with her… So we did it.  Then after the carousel ride we walked around the olive oil and cheese festival that happened to be going on.  One of my favorite things about Italy- they celebrate their food all the time!

I crashed early the first night, because I had been up for over 24 hours between all of my flights, but it was a great start to my Italian adventure!

As a side note I want to let everyone know, since I’ve been to Florence before I didn’t go to a lot of the typical places again, but if you want to read about my first trip to Florence you can read about it here!