Cinque Terre

On our third day in Florence, we took a day trip to Cinque Terre which consists of five cities,  or "lands", on the coast and cliffs of the Mediterranean. It was a two hour train ride to the first town and from there different shuttles can take you between the cities, or you can take hour long, scenic hikes between the villages. We did half and half. Hike there, ride back.

The water was so blue...and I was in ocean withdrawal so that made it even more breathtaking.

The group in our hiking clothes.

Those were some definite cliffs. No sandy beaches here.

From the hiking trail, you can see the village we just left. At the last village there was a sandy beach and after all the hiking we had just done we were more than ready to dive on in and cool off. Beach comparisons: Cinque Terre was more rocky, but the water was a bit warmer than the Pacific and more buoyant too, which is always fun :)

Florence, day two

The first thing on the agenda today was to visit/climb Il Duomo. We ate our free breakfast at the ho(s)tel, which worked out really well, caught our bus to the city center and waited in line to get our tickets.

Here's a picture of me next to Il Duomo while waiting in line.

The doors and archway to the entrance were so delicate and intricate.

A small exhibit of statues on our way up to the top.

A view of the top fresco of the cathedral. This is the part that is inside the dome. We were up so high it was scary to think about the positions the painters were in, in order to create this wonderful work of art.

A view of the seats below.

This is a picture to show where we were walking: way up near the high rose windows. Eek!

Another view of the nave. Yup, we were up pretty high.

Ok now, prepare yourselves for the many views from the top...

Try not to think about falling off the top...

You can see Palazzo Vecchio in this picture.

Behind the dome in this picture you can see the train tracks we came in on. The station is named for that very same church, Santa Maria Nouvella.

A view of Il Duomo's campanile.

Whew, so many red rooftops. Next up, more views of our ramblings 'round the city.

in case you weren't sure what Il Duomo looked like, here's another view

yay for equestrian statues!

street view with you-know-who peeking in

Well just in case you wanted some more views from up high, we also decided to climb up Il Duomo's campanile (it wasn't near as strenuous as the dome, and our ticket worked for both).

See those people around the top of the dome? That was us a few hours before!

look out below!

Here is a close up of the fake David we saw yesterday because we didn't end up having enough time to go see it in person and the line was too long :(

We walked into a Ferrari exhibition while walking along the river, so that was cool. It was one of those things that would be unique about our trip--you don't see that every day!

For dinner, we went up to Michelangelo square, on a hill overlooking the city.

Yes, the fake Davids are everywhere.

A view from the cafe where we ate dinner.

Now, I'll leave you with some sunset views. (That's around 9pm here)

Weekend Trip to Firenze

So my main question here is how do we get the English name Florence from Firenze, the Italian name for the city? Yeah, who knows...

On Friday the 29th the feast of St. Peter and St.Paul are celebrated. Being two very important saints in the Catholic church (and the patron saints of Rome) it is a holiday here which meant no class on Friday (or monday). Thus, this weekend was a perfect opportunity to take a trip outside of Rome. 12 out of the 16 of us went together and even though there wasn't much advanced planning, the whole trip turned out very well!

This is the platform where we waited for our train to arrive. We left our apts at 6:30 am that morning--pretty early for college students on vacation! The ride was about three and a half hours long. The view was interesting along the way. First there were lots of agricultural fields and sunflower fields! Then we went through the mountains and some tunnels.

These are our first views of Florence and its famous cathedral, known as Il Duomo and its bell tower.

This is a view of Piazza Vecchio where you can see copies of famous statues housed in Florence's museums including the statue of David.

A view of Palazzo Vecchio, where the powerful Medici family lived. It's very distinctive tower can be seen in the skyline in many places in Florence.

the fake David statue

This is where we ate lunch right off the train. We couldn't check into our hostel until 2pm and our train arrived at 11am so we had a bit of time to kill. I wish I had taken a picture of the sandwich I got: it was huge, fresh, and delicious!

Some views of the beautiful Arno river.

a view of ponte vecchio

A view from Ponte Vecchio, which has shops and cute restaurants on it overlooking the river.

Florence has a lot more bikes than Rome does. In Rome the alternate form of transportation of choice seems to be the vespa, which is not quite as environmentally friendly.

The buildings in the city are of a different architectural style than most from this time period. The exterior is highly decorated with stripes of green marble or other green stone that is used to line the facades of the buildings.

a set of beautifully engraved doors

Stay tuned for day two of Florence tomorrow.