Florence & Pisa

We usually pack light, but we really outdid ourselves this time. Maybe sometime we will take a trip where we wear nice clothes and check bags, but this trip was not it. We blitzed Italy in backpacks and tennis shoes, going where we wanted when we wanted. We'll probably never be able to do this kind of trip again. Backpack in Europe? Check!

After Rome, we spent a quick 24 hours in Florence (Firenze = my favorite word in Italian), which was even more charming than Rome. Florence's cathedral is magnificent. Not an inch of the surface was left plain. Surprisingly, the inside is totally unremarkable... but the outside is beyond.

If this trip had a theme, it was 'climbing stuff.' Hills, cathedral domes, bell towers... Todd never met a set of stairs he didn't want to go up. But the view was always worth it.

I really wasn't interested in a statue of some naked guy, but you don't go to Florence and skip seeing David. I may not have been overly awed by the Sistine Chapel, but Michelangelo's other masterpiece is incredible. The audio tour suggested looking at him from the front, then walking around to his left to see how his expression changed from pure confidence to a hint of trepidation. HOW DO YOU DO MAKE ROCK DO THAT?

Todd found Florence's best sunset view on the hill across the Arno. His spur of the moment ideas usually turn out to be amazing... I'm starting to wonder why I waste so much time planning things. We took like 300 pictures, it just kept getting prettier every minute.

I loved walking around Florence at night, particularly in the Piazza della Signorina. There was a man playing beautiful songs on the guitar as we looked at statues... a perfect Italian night!

The next morning, we walked across the Ponte Vecchio (should be renamed Ponte Mall) to the Boboli Gardens. I was really enthused about these gardens, and they were nice, but not a must-see. Probably the wrong season.

After leaving Florence, we stopped in Pisa for a few hours, where there is little to do except take that picture. The tower's lean is more than expected (and they've even straightened it some) and the stonework is really beautiful. We didn't go up the tower, but we went inside the adjacent chapel. Its interior is what you'd assume the Florence cathedral would look like-- beautiful stripey stone.