Florence, Italy

My next stop on my spring break was Florence, Italy.  I stayed here for three nights, so I really got to experience a lot of the city.  I also have a friend studying in Florence, so I got to see her everyday I was there and she was able to show me around a little.

 

This is the view from my room.  The streets are very narrow in Florence, with tall buildings on each side of the street.  It is really cool to walk around on the streets there.

This is the famous bridge in Florence, called the Pente Vecchio.  It is the oldest bridge in the area and it is known for its jewelry stores which line both sides of the bridge.

This is the Santa Croce Basilica.  Its outside is white with green and pink accent.  I found it very interesting that every church in Florence had this same color scheme.

This is an example of the many delicious Italian baked goods I consumed while in Florence.  On the left is a chocolate filled croissant and on the right it a vanilla pudding filled pastry.  I also had tons of gelato while I was there!

This is a picture of the most famous building in Florence, the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, otherwise known as the Duomo.  This is a view of the building as I was climbing up over four hundred steps to the top of the tower.

This is the view from the top of the tower, which had a great view of the Duomo.  I could really take in the whole city, as it has one of the best views of Florence.

This is Michelangelo's statue the David.  It's one of the most famous pieces of sculpture in the world and its scale is massive.  It it located in the Accademia Gallery.

This was my delicious Italian wood-fire-cooked pizza.

This is a picture of one of Florence's secret bakeries.  Florence is known for having a few secret bakeries, which people visit late at night.  A secret bakery is a bakery that makes baked goods at night for the shops to sell to customers the next day.  They are not supposed to sell directly to consumers.  I went to two secret bakeries one night, in which I knocked on the door and they carefully snuck me a pastry in exchange for one euro.  At the first bakery I got a donut with chocolate on top and at the second one I got a warm, freshly baked croissant, filled with chocolate!