Ciao Italia!!!

A little Italian Math:

2 flights + 8 train rides + 3 different hotels + one amazing cruise ship + too many $5 Coca Cola Lights + 2 $15 gelatos + almost daily pizza = a great time, which was > (greater than) the frustration of 2 dead turtles + 1 green pool + 2 cars scraped against each other when we got home!! :)

At the top of Lane's bucket list was a trip to Italy.  It was our 20th anniversary, and my birthday, so we decided why not go big and do a dream trip to Italy and a cruise as well.  You only live once, right? :)

We flew through Detroit into Rome.  We left Saturday the 13th in the morning, and got into Rome Sunday morning, the 14th.  We dragged our luggage over to the train station and  immediately hopped on a train to Florence, where we stayed at the Una Vittoria Hotel.  It was very nice, though the rooms were small - as most hotels in Europe are!

We checked in and were raring to go see all the sights.  Florence was an amazingly charming and beautiful city.  It is where Michaelangelo's David is housed in the Accademia Museum, and also has the Ufizzi Gallery which held tons of paintings from Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Boticelli, etc.  

We headed to see the David first.  You wind through narrow streets looking for random buildings that house amazing things.  It was kinda strange.  We honestly felt like we were walking in the Venitian in Las Vegas!  Weird!

We got to the Accademia Museum, and ran into the Illinois State (?) basketball team going in to the museum.  How cool was that?  They had a kid there who was 7 ft. 1 in.  Anyway, we went into the museum, and walked around and quickly found the David.  Wow, Michaelangelo was a true master.  The detail of muscles and bones and even veins was amazing!  The David is truly spectacular, even though we quickly found ourselves in a severe jet-lag fog and desperately needed sleep.  We dragged through the museum, and headed to our hotel for a little rest.  I have to say, there were tons of signs and people saying "NO PHOTOS!"  We obeyed, but about 50% of the people just sat there and took pictures!  It was crazy!  So, I have no picture of the David, but I'm sure you all know what he looks like, and this is a family friendly blog, so not sure I need that porn on here! ha!!!

Four hours later, we woke ourselves up and went out for dinner, and had what was probably one of the best dinners we had the whole time there!  Gnocchi and pizza that really was to DIE for!  And it only cost like $60! (A little sticker shock there!)  Here is where we were introduced to our first $5 Cokes.

Anyway, the city was a great kick off to a great week of Italian sight seeing.   

The first church we saw in the first of many, many piazzas we came upon.

El Duomo - an amazing chapel and building that was built in the 1700s - before they knew how to build a dome that big.  They designed the building with a huge dome, and started building it, and made someone figure out how to build a huge dome!  It worked!

Some seriously good Gnocchi.

Excellent pizza too!

Some random church in yet another piazza.

Another piazza  - I think this is the huge one with the Ufizzi Gallery.

On top of the Ufizzi Gallery

Our first, and LAST $15 ice cream cones!!! They did taste good.

Backside of Ufizzi Gallery, and the Arno river.

Some weird statue outside of this amazing house and gardens we visited.

At the top of the gardens

The city FULL of tourists!!!

Up Next: Venice!