How to Survive on Pizza and Gelato
Italy Part 2
We had a chance to sleep in a bit (you know you were in rough shape the night before when the hostel lady comments that you look much less dead this morning) and moved to the other hostel. We had said goodbye to Garrett the night before, he was heading up to travel in France but had apparently spent the night in a McDonalds because he arrived too late to get into his hostel. After settling in we went out again to explore the city. It's so weird thinking back 4 years, to when I came with Katya, Katie and Charis. So much has changed since then but the city looks completely the same, the historical buildings don't exactly change much, the street markets are selling the exact same things and Steve even bought the same postcard that I had. In the meantime Katie's gotten married, Nancy's been accepted to the Colombia medical mission practicum and Katya's going to be moving cross country to live with me! We walked past the Duomo to the Old Palace, where I showed Steve the carved self-portrait of Michelangelo, which he had etched out of boredom into the side of the building when there was a festival and he couldn't get through the crowd. Griffin had pointed it out to me and not a lot of people even know it's there. Steve tried to remember all the little history tidbits from Assassins Creed about the Medicci family and their power in Florence.
We hung out in the Palazza Vecchio, or as Steve refers to it, 'Penis Plaza' due to all the naked Renaissance statues across from the Palace. We crossed the river, one bridge past the Ponte Vecchio, to Steve's so-far-favourite gelateria, (all of which were marked on his map) and past the Pitti Palace, which was closed (what a Pitti). We do tend to get weird looks and one guy passing me on a bike yelled 'aren't you cold?' as most people are in winter coats. We then climbed the stairs to the Piazza de Michelangelo. This is one of my favourite vistas in the world; the tuscan sunset over vineyards and Renaissance architecture.
We met up with Martino, a guy I had met on the train from Bologna to Florence, and he showed us around what he called 'real Florence.' Away from the crowded tourist piazzas and to the more twist paths and small eclectic stores. We had to wait a bit for the pizzaria to open, restaurants don't open until 7:30, and then sat outside on the steps of Santo Spirito Church, and enjoyed the best pizza in town. Steve wasn't feeling great so we headed back early.