The sounds of Florence:


Carts that bang on the cobble stone from 4AM-7AM
Churchbells that either sound beautiful or like pots and pans
Constant snippets of Italian conversation and laughter
Nightly Music


It is Tuesday afternoon and I am taking a break from wandering, as my feet are sore, and my body is tired. Yesterday was a good day =)


I started off the day getting up early to go to Mercato Centrale, which is right around the corner in our home piazza.  Basically, it's a big building full of vendors -- kind of like pike's place, but in a building like a train station.  They sell fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, bread, pasta, and all of the fixings for very cheap. There is also a place to get a latte and a pastry for 2.30 euro, which is the perfect beginning to days when we have class. This is what my latte looked like: 

My lovely and delicious coffee set the tone for the day. We stood at the bar (sitting costs) sipping our lattes and listening to the meet vendor in back of us passionately sing to American songs on the radio (a tad off key, but definitely brought a smile to my face) My roommate and I then walked around perusing food and we made friends with a fruit and vegetable vendor, who couldn't speak much English, and thought we were cute for struggling to convey how many cherries we wanted.  He was this jolly older Italian man and he was incredibly nice, and would smile and pinch our cheeks with affection.  He also threw in  two extra apples for free! It was a fun experience and we'll probably go back a few times during the week. Here was our haul for our first trip

After walking up three flights of stairs (and another two for the kitchen) to drop off our groceries, we headed off to our first day of class! We are taking class at the University of Florence with a professor from UC Davis.  The class is absolutely phenomenal.  Our professor knows the material inside and out -- and after giving us a background on Renaissance Florence, proceeded to tease apart the first three cantos of Dante's Inferno.  I learned so much and she had my full attention for two hours straight. I am so glad that I chose this trip. Then, as a class we walked over to the Palazzo Vechio (basically the town hall/civic center -- and has been for hundreds of years) and had a tour of the part of it that used to be home to Cosimo Medicci I.  The amount of art EVERYWHERE was unbelievable.  Everything was covered in art. It's almost impossible to capture what it was like in a picture, but this can give you some sort of an idea

This is the hall of 500 built for Cosimo's son's wedding. The painting on the left is enormous and depicts Florence's conquering of Pisa. To the right, a similar painting of the conquering of Siena. I loved the bright, vibrant colors -- which, in my limited experience, seems to be uncommon with older paintings. Sculptures line the room, including an original of Michelangelo's. And the ceiling is an entire work of art in itself, being several paintings framed with gold. The rest of the rooms followed in a lavish suit, with everything from gold leaf on the walls to a map of California from the 16th century! I also learned about the stone of Florence (a soft grey stone) and Florence's symbols: the fleur de lis, lion and red cross on white flag. 

We broke for lunch (which was a delicious and truly amazing proscuitto sandwich) -- after which, we headed back to the Palazzo Vechio for the secret passageways tour. This is a hard tour to book, so having a teacher who has done this trip for ten years really pays off.  However, no English or Italian tourguides were available, so we ended up with a French one, who spoke a little Italian and even less English. So my professor translated the whole tour for us. It was AMAZING to watch them try to communicate with mostly French combined with Italian and English. Oh, and did I mention that he was incredibly handsome, well built and adorable? He was nice too! This tour was fascinating. He took us through a few secret passageways of the palazzo vechio and to Francesco Medicci's secret laboratory, and Cosimo's secret study.  The most interesting part was that Francesco's lab/study was covered in paintings -- some of which were cabinets -- that were all a code for what was in the cabinets. It combined the four elements (Earth, Air, Water and Fire), the seasons and mythology.  oh, and of course the paintings were beautifully detailed. We also got to go up above the roof of the room of 500, which was apparently raised (I missed the story), which was really interesting too! 


After saying goodbye and merci to our wonderful tourguide, we walked along the river and then headed home to make dinner. It was a beautiful day.

I cooked dinner which didn't turn out half bad! The pasta from the market was incredibly good. Our last adventure of the night was finding one of the "top five gelato places" from our guide book. It's called Vestri and known for it's white chocolate gelato. Unfortunately they were out of that when we got there, but that just means we have an excuse to go again! I had white peach and florentine vanilla and it basically had the creamy taste of homemade ice cream, which was a pleasure =)

I passed the rest of the night reading about Florence in my guidebooks, and trying to stay cool. I'm adapting to the weather, but last night was the hottest yet! Now I'm off to plan our weekend trips and read Dante. Till next time!