Florence is beautiful, as you will see from the pictures, however, when I was there it rained every day except one. That put a damper on the traveling; but didn't stop me from taking pictures.
Florence has charm that is difficult to describe; the cathedrals are amazing, vast and the best I've seen in Italy so far. The monuments and statues are exquisite, especially seeing the David in person. There is a beautiful garden in Florence that made me miss home more than usual. There are crowds everywhere and the shopping is unreal - the first time I saw shops that were familiar to me - Footlocker, Benetton, Adidas, Ben & Jerry's, Cartier and so on.
The food, I haven't really talked about the food here. As you might imagine, it's amazing, although sometimes I feel like I'm getting ready to do the Ironman Canada with the carb loading! Lots of pasta and bread, wine and pizza. Let me talk about the pizza here as it's completely different from the pizza back home. There is no such thing as thin crust, one crust, no tomato sauce, toppings only and no cheese unless you ask for it as a topping. Here's the best part - a pizza usually costs about 5Euro, cheap! Living on a budget, it's fantastic!
Okay, Florence, tons of pictures.....several posts, next posts, just pictures.
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| Cathedral Santa Croce |
Cathedral Santa Croce.
Another stunning cathedral and vast. You can see the dimensions from the street light to the right of the picture.
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| Basilica di San Lorenzo |
Basilica di San Lorenzo.
Tree to the right shows the dimensions of the cathedral.
Cathedral Santa Maria Novella (below). This is most beautiful cathedral I've seen in Italy. It is so big, I couldn't maneuver my camera in any angle to get a picture of the entire thing. Also, you'll notice in the pictures that there are no people in them; that is because I was able to take pictures of the cathedral above the sight-line of people.
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| Cathedral Santa Maria Novella |
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| Cathedral Santa Maria Novella |
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| Cathedral Santa Maria Novella |
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| Cathedral Santa Maria Novella |
These two pictures are of the cathedral from the front. The tall structure in the left picture on the right side is the same structure in the right picture.
