After our first stay in Venice we had decided that Florence had to be the next logical stop. At this point we felt that we were fully back into travel mode, which obviously we were able to readapt into quite quickly. In Florence we stayed in an excellent hostel, called plus Florence. At the time it was one of, if not the best hostel we had stayed in, fully equipped with a restaurant, bar, pool, and roof top patios. While in Venice we didn't put in a lot of time in Museums and churches, so getting into Florence, a city with loads of famous art and sights to be seen we decided to go and get into as many as possible.
This however proved to be much tougher than expected, as it was art week in Florence, meaning all the museums were free, which was great, however the crowds and lines to get into all note worthy places was unbelievable. We started out by heading to the Uffizi Gallery, an extremely famous museum filled with works from even more famous artist. Unfortionatly we had to wait in line for two hours just to get in, but thankfully it was free. While in line we met a few American girls, who shared our passion for the ski bumb lifestyle, so after finishing up with the Uffizi the four of us ran around town and were able to get into both the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, and the Acadamy gallery as well. The most famous works we were able to see was the David, along with many other works by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Botticelli that were quite impressive. This probibly wouldnt have been the case if it were just the two of us, but thankfully our new American friends encouraged us to come around with them and see it all. Overall we were pretty satisified that we were able to get all three in in one day, giving us a little more time to explore the city out side of the Museums the next day. That night we went and met up with the girls we had toured the city with that day for a few well deserved pints at an Irish pub near by, and then called it a day.
Our second day in Florence we decided to hike around the city a bit more, going to check out the Ponte Vecchio, a famous bridge lined with gold smith shops, and the Pitti Palace. After this we had to go do a little bit of shopping, as the weather was starting to warm up and we were both in serious need of some summer clothing for the months to come. That night we hung around at the hostel bar with some people we had met previous nights, and got ready for the day trip to Pisa and heading onto Chinqe Terra!
