Rome to Florence

Tuesday 14 June 2011
We stopped in a quaint town called Orvieto on our drive to Florence. I liked it a lot. I wandered about the town aimlessly looking in the cute little shops. We arrived in Florence about 4pm and then went on a quick walking tour to see some of the main sights, and then we had a leather demo at leonardo's leather factory. We had another 4 course Italian meal at a dodgy bar near the river, which was attached to a karaoke bar next door. This is where we bought our 3.5L tower of beer which came out with a rocket in the top shooting sparks everywhere, very cool. The contiki douche bags hogged the mike so we didn't get a chance to sing, not that I wanted to get up there anyway. I had to throw a plastic cup at this one guy who was truly terrible, and he did the guitar part as well, soooooo bad. GET OFF! YA SHIT!!

Wednesday 15 June 2011
Got my art on today, bought reserved tickets to the two main museums in town so I won't have to wait in line and then got my standup coffee/pastry fix at a little cafe, only 2 euro! I spent a good 2 hours in the Uffizi gallery which held so many amazing works by Italian artists, michaelangelo, Rafael, bottacelli, Caravaggio, da Vinci, Donatello etc. The birth of Venus is simply amazing in real life, and I really liked the painting of medusa, and the collection of sculpture was also very impressive. Had a great time. Next stop was Galleria L'Accademia to see old mate David. He is one heck of a masterpiece. There are no words. Just go see it, it's amazing. I spent at least 30 minutes just looking at him from all different angles. There was also a musical instrument museum which I got a kick out of. 

Thursday 16 June 2011
Florence at leisure... I slept in until 11am, but after I got into town my first stop was the Santa Croce, it was such a beautiful old church with some great art works inside. The tombs of gallileo and michaelangelo were inside and also some boticelli paintings. I took some time off after all this churching and ate my lunch in the Piazzale Michaelangelo which sits on the top of a hill overlooking the whole city. I was in my happy place! I wrote some letters back home, read my book for a while, and listened to the classical and Italian music pumping out of the cafe nearby. I took another couple of hours to stroll through the Gallileo museum which was filled with his experiments, mathematical instruments, scientific models, telescopes, massive globes. It was really interesting. A bit weird that they have gallileo's middle and index finger bones enshrined there, gross! Tonight we had last supper with more friends who were leaving for crotia. Yet another 4 course Italian meal which was SENSATIONAL!! Apply some wine at the hostel bar... I managed to sit down where there was no chair, and banged my arm on the table on the way down and got a nice fat bruise for being an idiot... Only spilled a tiny bit of my drink though :)