Before heading to the Roma Termini, we had one last sight to see (that rhymes). It was what I referred to earlier as a bunch of skeletons: Cappuchin Crypt. It is basically like a cemetery for about 4000 priests, but it is not your typical cemetery; when you walk in there are small rooms with designs and intricate patterns all over the walls and ceilings, made of bones from all parts of their bodies. It was creepy and fascinating at the same time. In the last room , there was a quote wrriten in the ground - "What you are now we used to be; what we are now you will be..."
The train station was con.fus.ing. We knew we had to get our Eurail passes validated, but we didn't know where. We went to the information desk and explained where we were traveling and that we had Eurail passes to be validated, and the old man behind the counter kept repeating two words: "Platform 5". His response to everything we said...Platform 5. We finally found someone that could help us and got on the train to Florence. Turns out, the train to Florence was on Platform 2. It was really easy to find our hostel, Academy hostel, and we were quite glad that we had a day of straightforward walking routes...spoke too soon. At night we wanted to go to Santa Croce, a lively area of bars and pubs. We brought along one of our roommates, Alex from Brazil, who was not impressed by my phenomenal navigation skills. Either way, about an hour later, we found Santa Croce, which was literally 5 bars in one block. Seriously?! We chose a bar called Red Garter, where Sana and I rocked it out on karaoke to "Only Girl" by Rihanna. Sorry people, there is no videotaped evidence. So sorry.
Thursday, July 28 2011
Today we headed to the Uffizi gallery, the world's oldest gallery. The wait in the ticket line was two hours! It was brutal. However, we did meet a sweet Nepalese family and chatted with them for most of the wait. The little girl, Maya, befriended me and gave me a silly band - how cute! Once in the gallery, Sana and I were greeted with an overwhelming amount of male genitalia...on the sculptures obviously. We tried counting but lost track after 37. Once we had had enough of the sculptures we looked at the paintings, many of which were of baby Jesus and Madonna (I found out Madonna meant the Virgin Mary). I had trouble keeping focus when looking at all the Madonna and Jesus paintings, but the gallery visit showed its worth when we got to the Leonardo Da Vinci paintings. I was most impressed by one called "Adoration of the Magi". We walked home to the beautiful sound of a lady singing opera outside the Duomo.
After a bit of a rest, we started to walk to the Piazzele Michaelangelo, which has a spectacular view of the entire city. On the way, however, we of course got distracted by a gelato shop. We ended up spending more on gelato than on dinner. Go figure. I decided to get a cone with nutella and banana gelato, and Sana got a waffle with tiramisu gelato on it, which every passerby was eyeing. We had to sit down and eat because Sana's waffle was so darn big! Speaking of eyeing, while enjoying our delicious dessert, (Sana had more gelato on her face than in her mouth), some Italian guys stopped to make conversation with us. I must mention that about a minute earlier, the same guys had walked by us, and it was obvious that they had come back. Needless to say, we were sketched out. As a safeguard, Sana started frantically eating her humongous waffle. In the process, her fork flung out of her hand onto the ground. At that point, we decided to scurry off and find her a new fork, which turned out to be quite the task because every competing gelato place denied her.
After this fiasco, we found the Piazzele and took in the amazing view of the city. As I enjoyed the view of Florence, I thought about how different Florence is from many of the other cities I've been to. This is because Florence seems calm from a distance, as well as when you are wandering its streets. On the walk back to the hostel, we spent some time on the Ponte Vecchio and witnessed some live music. I am pretty happy to be sitting down right now because my feet are in desperate need of a break. This need for a break is unfortunate as tomorrow morning we head to Pisa and then Cinque Terre, where we plan to do an 18 km hike. Pray for me?
No comments:
Post a Comment