Day 9 Pisa & Florence
Oct. 12th, 2012 10:17 pmIt was raining this morning when we got to Pisa, pretty hard too, which made taking photos a miserable pain. We got a tilted shot glass from a souvenir shop and then scuttled back to the tour bus.
Then we actually circled back to Florence. The city pretty much still uses the old stone roads from the medieval era so there's no room for any of the large buses to get into the city. This meant we had to park outside the city and then walk aaaallll the way inside. It was a long walk. Then, we got to the extremely overly-gilded Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral/duomo (yeah I googled the name) of Florence (made of white, green, and pink marble!) and were handed over to a local tour guide.
We then went to the Galleria dell' Accademia (more google) to gawk at the works of Michaelangelo, including the famous statue of David. No photos allowed, unfortunately.
After that we went to another chapel place supposedly interring Dante's wife & favorite mistress. And then swung by the city center/offices which are housed in the old Medicci palace. Then the Basilica of Santa Croce cathedral (yay google again) which is supposedly more famous for the people interred there - Machiavelli, Galileo, some other dudes I forget, and Michaelangelo (whose body was stolen back from Rome).
After that we took a long drive to Rome, where our hotel for the last day is going to be. Tomorrow we will tour Rome, and then the day after we will be departing for the US.
Then we actually circled back to Florence. The city pretty much still uses the old stone roads from the medieval era so there's no room for any of the large buses to get into the city. This meant we had to park outside the city and then walk aaaallll the way inside. It was a long walk. Then, we got to the extremely overly-gilded Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral/duomo (yeah I googled the name) of Florence (made of white, green, and pink marble!) and were handed over to a local tour guide.
We then went to the Galleria dell' Accademia (more google) to gawk at the works of Michaelangelo, including the famous statue of David. No photos allowed, unfortunately.
After that we went to another chapel place supposedly interring Dante's wife & favorite mistress. And then swung by the city center/offices which are housed in the old Medicci palace. Then the Basilica of Santa Croce cathedral (yay google again) which is supposedly more famous for the people interred there - Machiavelli, Galileo, some other dudes I forget, and Michaelangelo (whose body was stolen back from Rome).
After that we took a long drive to Rome, where our hotel for the last day is going to be. Tomorrow we will tour Rome, and then the day after we will be departing for the US.