What a Wonderful World

We had one full day in Florence and knew we had to really take advantage of it. This city is pretty big, but has been able to keep a hold on its old-world roots with many piazzas and sun-stained alleys...really a fantastic place. We started down from our campsite and went straight to the Uffizi gallery, the most famous house of Renaissance art in the world. It holds tons of paintings by the greats: Michelangelo, da Vinci, Boticelli, etc. We were pumped it was even open on a Monday (when it's usually closed) because it was a national holiday... the Italian Independence Day! We walked through that gallery and headed to the very famous Duomo cathedral where we were dumb-struck by the pink, green, and white marble exterior. This thing is amazing, and serves as the base for a HUGE dome.

As we only have 8 days left on our trip, we figured we better finish finding housing and transportation, so we spent an hour getting that all settled before taking a bus to the hill town, Fiesole, right outside of Florence. This town is the picture of Tuscany over-looking Florence from above. We had a blast playing in some ancient Roman ruins and Tripp took some time to perform in the Roman theatre still in tact. It took a while for Laura to drag him away, but eventually we finished our visit with a great lunch, including panna cotta, an Italian dessert, that was TO DIE FOR!!

We have found on our trip that we are able to eat whenever we please. It may not be any sort of meal time at all, but since we are splitting everything and are trying as many foods as possible, we just go for it! So... we were hungry again once we got back to town and ate a calzone sitting on a side street watching Florence rush by.

Speaking of rushing by, Florence's river has many beautiful bridges crossing it and has been dammed many times to reduce flooding. Because of this, there are some fun footpaths down to the water where you can pretty much stand right in the river! We took the time to watch the sunset down there, enjoying looking at pictures from the last few days.

Being in these cities, we quickly find favorite little nooks and crannies. One place we sort of fell in love with was a square where we spent some time with Kerry Knapp catching up and sharing stories. It's a really big area with a pavilion where musicians play surrounded by gelaterias and statues. We headed back there for one last hoorah and were so excited to find ourselves in the middle of an orchestral concert for the Independence Day celebration. We had a ball listening as people from all around the world gathered. They even had a tribute to Louis Armstrong, playing a medley of "When the Saints Go Marching In," "Hello Dolly," and "What a Wonderful World." It was an incredible nightcap to be sitting in that piazza that evening. What a farewell to one of our favorite cities on our trip. Here's to you, Florence!

Love you all!

Tripp and Laura

ps- Since we have become quite the gelato connosieurs, we were excitied to quickly find a favorite in Florence. Grom gelateria was recommended to us by Laura's friends from Furman that we ran into. It's not the normal colorful spot with fresh gelato and fruit. It seems a little stark sitting in a back alley with its stainless steel tubs of the sweet stuff, but they know what they are doing. We found our favorite combination after going 3 TIMES in two days!!! Extra dark, bittersweet chocolate with Crema de Grom (a cookies and caramel mixture). Wish you could have tried the stuff... but we ate enough for all of you! Ha ha!

New flavors we have tried include:
pineapple, raspberry, peach, papaya, strawberry, coconut...we'll get you the full list soon!