Creative Musings

Up above the city overlooking Florence there is a large Piazza, devoted to Michelangelo with one of the replica's of David as it's mascot. As you can guess, it's called Piazza Michelangelo. The other day we decided do one of the walking tours from our Lonely Planet guide book and decided on the "Sunset Views & A Country Mile". Except that it was more like early afternoon views, and it ended up being about a 3k walk. Since it was ice cold outside, we took the bus up, and walked down.

To give you a nice idea of how cold it was here, I was wearing long johns and tall socks under my pants, a tank top, long sleeve shirt, super warm Italian Sweater (which is backless but still is really warm), my puffy coat and gloves. After we got walking we did warm up, but when we sat down for a break it got cold again.

From Piazza Michelangelo you have a beautiful view of Florence and of the surrounding hillsides. From there we walked down the windy road that surprisingly has a lot of car traffic. We took tons of pictures and had a nice leisurely walk. After a while we stopped for a snack and sat on a bench that had a beautiful view.

After a while of walking down this street I figured I should look at the map to make sure we were going the right way. It just so happened that the place where I stopped was right in front of the side street that we needed to turn down! From here we didn't have any more country views, but it was very fun none the less. This road, got continuously narrower and narrower. Also, the sidewalk was about a foot and a half wide, so whenever we heard cars speeding towards us we had to plaster ourself against the stone walls. These stone walls happened to be on both sides of the road, and were probably 7-8 feet tall.

We ended up walking down past Fort Belvedere, which is directly behind the Boboli Gardens (which are behind the giant Medici palace, Palazzo Pitti). At this time we were getting into a more residential part of town, and eventually ended up at the Ponte Vecchio. It ended up being a gorgeous afternoon, and what a way to spend it!

There are 5 other walking tours in our guide book that we plan on taking ourselves on ranging from specific areas of town, to the Last Supper trail, and Cinema Scenes. I hope you like my photos from this day! Check them out here. I will be posting another album of more artsy photos like the one below, from the walk for you to check them out if you are interested!

Labels: Arno River, Florence, Piazza Michelangelo

Before my room-mates and I arrived in Italy, we were very skeptical about an apartment having 3 separate bedrooms each with their own bathroom and TVs. Well, when we arrived here we found that it is possible! Oh, and we have 11 ft ceilings. Our apartment is fantastic!

We live in a narrow yellow building between two streets right off a big, I can't think of the English word! The circular thing in the middle of a bunch of streets that all traffic has to go around in one direction! Oh yeah! A "Roundabout". Anyways, since we are in a narrow building, we have windows on both sides of the apartment. Also, it is a major road heading out of the city to nearby suburbs, so we have many bus stops close by. The buses that we take home from school drop us off directly in front of our apartment!

The apartment is on the first floor, which here in Italy means the first floor above ground level. Our front door is quite amazing. First off, there is a crazy shaped key, which is the only way to get in the front door. There is no knob to turn. Our door is locked from either side with the key, which slides 4 steel posts into place. So we are very secure! Our neighborhood is full of local Italians, which is nice for us and speaking Italian. I am quite glad that we are not in the center of the city. We have only a 5-10 minute bus ride to most parts of the city.

Our kitchen is good sized, with a nice big dining table. Somehow there really is no living room though. Just a couch and small blue table. I won't complain though, because we all have amazing bedrooms. We spend a lot of time cooking in here, talking, and doing homework together at the dining table. All around our kitchen there are little stickers with the Italian name for something and the phonetic spelling above it are. So we will never forget the word for cup - "tazza", or salt & pepper - "sale e peppe" are. We also put up all the maps that we had with us on the walls for decoration, so we have maps of Italy/Switzerland/Austria, a planning map of Italy, the United States, Barcelona, Tuscany, and Florence.

There is a long hallway that leads to the 3 bedrooms. Mine is first on the left. Now don't get me wrong, last time I was in Italy I absolutely loved my cute little apartment, but this time my bedroom is just a little bit smaller than my entire apartment was before. I have 2 twin beds, a decent sized window, desk with a massive amount of shelving taking over an entire corner of my room, huge closet, full length mirror with shoe closet behind, and.... the worlds narrowest bathroom! No joke, I have never experienced a bathroom narrower than this before. It's so narrow that I almost couldn't get a picture of it! You can barely see 1/2 of it on each side in the photos that I put in my album. It's a bit annoying, but in all actuality pretty funny.

I'm settling into my room more and more each week, getting things organized and not looking like a temporary room. In an attempt to fill up all my shelf space I am putting up little areas on it dedicated to the places that I have traveled. So far, I only have a corner for Barcelona, with post cards and an espresso cup that looks like some of Gaudi's mosaic tiling.

To see all the photos of my new home, CLICK HERE.

Labels: Florence

So, I have survived my first week in Florence. I was so busy, first getting into my apartment, then going to welcome dinners for school and Global Experiences that our first actual evening in our apartment was Friday night! I have lucked out because my two roommates both love to cook! They are also from Arkansas, so I get to experience a bit of Southern food! For our first dinner they made roasted chicken, gemelli pasta with tomato sauce, amazing stir fried zuccini with onions garlic and tomato, crostini (crispy bread) with green olive oil & the best balsamic vinegar in the world, with a 2 euro bottle of white Tuscan wine that was quite good.

Saturday was amazing. Mostly because I got to sleep in until noon, followed by walking around the city and taking pictures. For those of you who may not know, I am not a morning person. I like being awake early, it's just the getting up part that I have trouble with. Every week day here I am up and on the bus by 8:30 am, so Saturday's sleeping in was much needed. I woke up to a nice knock on my door that was Sasha asking how I wanted my eggs cooked. How nice! Of course I got up, showed Sasha how to make coffee on the Italian stove top coffee maker, followed by a delicious breakfast of fresh squeeze juice of oranges and kiwi, fried eggs and proscuitto (an Italian cured ham), and tiny cornetti (croissants) with amazing European butter. Simply mazing.

We walked around the city all afternoon, until about 7 pm and got to see the sun cast a pink glow on the Duomo. After the sun went down we got dinner at my favorite Italian place: Trattoria Bordino, which is off the beaten path, has amazing food for great prices. Oh, and they don't speak English there! It also happens to be located on "Chocolate Chip Street", no joke.

Sunday we were going to go grocery shopping, only to find out that Esselunga is closed on Sundays!! We walked down the river to Piazza del Santo Spirito where they have an antiques fair and market. We found vendor that has almost every type of dried fruit you can think of. They are all the same price so you just scoop whatever you want into a bag. I got cherries, kiwi, pineapple, banana, lime, what I believe are kumquat slices, and 2 large slices of candied orange dipped in chocolate! I liked everything except for the lime (super gross) and the kumquat. Now I know for next time! It's good snack food to have, especially for the low blood sugar days of walking too much.

At the market we bought some cheese that is a mixture of goat/cow/sheep milk, pancetta, and garlic that was in some sort of brine. All this we made into a delicious dinner (except for the cheese of course!).

I put together a small photo album from Saturday's pictures. Click Here to see them.

Labels: Florence, Italy