family fun, days 8-9: florence!

Day 8:
In the morning, we headed to the train station (got breakfast on the go--cannoli is too sweet for the morning!) and hopped onto a train to Pisa, which is only an hour or so away from Florence. We got there, took a bus to the Field of Miracles (Campo dei Miracoli), where there is the whole church complex that includes the Leaning Tower of Pisa (since it's actually the bell-tower), as well as the baptistery, the cathedral, and the cemetery. The tower is really super leany! Geez. Talk about an engineering miracle. It's been like that for centuries, too...so insane. It was really cool to see in person (and harder than you'd think to take pictures with creative/cool poses with it, haha), and the cathedral was pretty neat as well. We didn't spend too long there, and then went back to the train station. However, on the way back, our bus got stuck in this awkward position where it couldn't quite make a turn but couldn't back out because traffic was flowing behind it...we were stuck there for a few minutes, haha.
Anyway, after getting back to Florence, we went on a mad hunt for the grocery store (per our dad's request), then split for lunch. Michelle and I were wandering past a market and then were looking at a menu outside a restaurant/bar when the owner came outside and said, "Sorry, we're closed for now, (since it was already 3 p.m.) unless you want sandwiches, then that's okay." Since that's all we were looking for, he made us each a pretty yummy sandwich with crunchy bread, salami, salad, and mushrooms. Mmm. As we sat on the steps behind a church and munched, we saw this adorable little blonde kid passing by who kept turning back and waving to us. Hehe X)
After we met up with our parents at the hotel, we checked out the Duomo Church (which was literally a one-minute walk from our hotel, or less), which has a huge frescoed dome of The Final Judgment (nothing new), which was pretty impressive. Michelle and I hiked up 400+ stairs up the belltower to see a view of Florence (and the neighboring dome). Pretty view :)
Then we tried to go to see the Boboli Gardens across the bride (Ponte Vecchio, which means "Old Bridge"--it's pretty cool, has a ton of jewelry stores), but it was closed, so we walked over to Piazzale Michelangelo, climbed another long slope, and got a view of Florence from the southeast as the sun was setting. Cool stuff :) and fun for pictures.
We ate some hearty Tuscan cooking for dinner at Casalinga--(salty) beef stew, tortellini with cream and ham (interesting), tripe, and garden pasta--pretty good and not too expensive. Too oily for my parents, though :( We took our mom to Grom on the way back! Yay gelato. We also saw the street performers (a trio of guitar, cello, and violin) from the night before in one of the plazas. They were pretty good!

Day 9:
We woke up, checked out, and then crossed the river again to the Palazzo Pitti and Boboli Gardens (where we'd tried to go the previous day). Seeing the prices (which were a little too high for what it seemed was inside, in our opinions), we stood outside for a while trying to decide what to do...lol, oh indecision. We finally decided against it and just roamed around the area (Florence is that type of city, after all). We looked at the jewelry on Ponte Vecchio and then chilled for a bit in Orsanmichele Church, where I got to share the gospel with my mom :) I think she just kinda heard it as information, but I'm still praying and hoping. We then all grabbed small sandwiches for lunch before heading to the famous Uffizi Gallery for our appointed/reserved time. That museum has a deceptively simple floor plan (a big "U"), but there are so many rooms off the main hall, and it's so big! It got pretty tiring after a while, plus we had another reserved time for the Accademia, so we got out around 2:30...and then we couldn't find our dad. It drove us a little crazy for a while, but my mom got permission to go back in and look for him. Thankfully, she found him not too long after, and we speed-walked to the Accademia, which is famous for Michelangelo's David (the original). It was very beautiful indeed. I just sat there for a while gazing at it (it's so tall, too!). I also really liked looking at his unfinished Prisoners series. I think there's something about seeing an unfinished work (I saw an unfinished Da Vinci painting at the Uffizi, too) that makes me even more aware of the whole process of creating the painting or sculpture (or whatever it is) and thus more admiring of the artist. So neat :) what talent.
After we were done with that, it was almost time to catch our next train, so we grabbed some gelato, our backpacks, and then went to the train station and boarded our train to Venice. A couple of hours later, we were there!
Man, Venice is just something else (and I'm not just saying that because I'm currently taking a class on it, haha). We walked out of the train station and bam--water! No cars, no big streets--just water. It was a really cool sight and feeling. I fell in love almost immediately. Not saying that Venice doesn't have its drawbacks (one of the biggest ones being the millions of tourists that go through it ever year, and then there's the fact that it's sinking...), because it does, but just seeing it for the first time was so...cool. Very unique.
We found our hotel (nearby, thankfully), dropped off our bags, and split for dinner. Michelle and I were trying to look for a place that didn't have a multilingual menu (per Rick Steves' suggestion), but there were nearly none near the train station that didn't have menus in English, Italian, French, and German (sheesh! lol). Finally, we settled on a touristy-looking one, but it ended up being one of our better meals :) in our opinion, anyway. Seafood is definitely the item to get in Venice! Pasta with scallops and gnocchi with cream of salmon. Mmm.
We wandered around a bit more (crossed the new Calatrava Bridge, which really doesn't fit in with the city's architecture at all), then headed back for bed. Which might be where I'm headed now...