Two Nuns, a Train Ride and Florence - September 18, Florence

It was time for the next stop on our Italy adventure: Florence.

We took a short taxi ride to the Termini train station in Rome, and after a few minutes of figuring out how to read the departures board, we were boarding an express train headed for Florence.

Note to travelers: Choose your train carefully! The difference between an Express and Local train to the same destination can vary by hours. And make sure you stamp your tickets in the yellow box. We saw several travelers ticketed who simply boarded without validating their boarding pass.

And who shared the four-seat combination on our train with us? Two nuns, of course!

We couldn't have asked for cuter companions for the train ride. We spoke zero Italian and they spoke zero English, so we communicated through a flurry of hand gestures. I was exhausted from our Rome adventures, but as I slept through most of the ride, the nuns took good care of Brendan by giving him water and Kleenexes. Which I thought was adorable.

As soon as we stepped from the train station in Florence after about a 90 minute ride, we knew Florence was going to be very different from Rome.

It was quieter, smaller, and almost seemed quaint compared to our previous city.

We drove to the hotel, dropped our bags and headed out to find lunch.
 
And it was awfully nice that Florence threw a parade in our honor.
 

Just kidding! But we did run into a parade of local music students. Group after group marched down the narrow streets playing a variety of contemporary and traditional band music. We found a pizza trattoria on the path of the parade, and settled in to enjoy the show.

Not a bad welcome at all. 

After lunch, we headed back to the hotel to freshen up. And immediately fell in love with our room and the hotel’s traditional-but-elegant décor. 

A room with a view of the Piazza Michelangelo-- more about that later!

 Next, it was on to David. The real one, not the variety of copies sprinkled around the city. Michaelangelo’s most famous sculpture. We had tickets with a 4 p.m. reservation so we took some time to explore on the way to his home in the Galleria dell’Accademia. 

The Ponte Vecchio, the oldest bridge in Florence dating back to the middle ages. It was the only bridge the Germans did not destroy in WWII, and is lined with jewelry shops.

The Duomo and Baptistry.

Don't be fooled! It's not the real one!

We weren't allowed to take photos of David (Brendan tried but was promptly scolded by the photo police), but pictures wouldn't do him justice. Sculpted in 1574, Rick Steves' podcast told us the sculpture depicts the exact moment that David believes he can take Goliath. While the statue is HUGE and now stands in a room designed just for him, the beauty to me was in the smallest details of his veins, his fingernails. Simply stunning. 

We explored the museum for a while, enjoying paintings from the earliest centuries depicting biblical scenes that were still familiar. 

That evening, we had a light dinner and headed back to the hotel to take it easy for a night. Florence already seemed like a quieter and gentler Italy, and we were looking forward to exploring her more tomorrow.