This past weekend, I had the privilege of traveling to Florence, The most famous artisan city in the world. We finished classes on Friday around 10:30 and left for the train station in Arezzo. This was my first time ever traveling by train, and it was about what I thought it would be. The train is an interesting specimen of culture because one can see just about every type of person aboard. There is the Italian business man yelling into his phone, the excited backpacker waiting to get off at the next stop, and loud schoolchildren bantering back and forth about their latest crush. The train brought excitement of leaving behind school work and normal everyday life in pursuit of a new destination: Florence. I have traveled to Florence before but it was when I was younger and I was with a set program with no freedom to see what I desired. Upon arriving in the Santa Maria Novella Train Station, It was very apparent that we were not in small quiet Sansepolcro anymore. The crowds were enormous and the tourist piled in by the train loads to come see the famous culture-drenched Firenze.
We left the train station and started our very long trek to our hotel all the way across the city. After fighting crowds, almost getting run over, and being distracted by every store and restraint that we wanted to go to we finally made it to our hotel. We spent our two nights in Florence in a very beautiful old convent (which most of the Meredith girls are used to anyway). We were on our own in Florence to make our own plans. This first excursion was a great way to get independent travel experience. I learned that smaller groups are easier to travel with for reasons of keeping up with everyone and making plans of what everyone wants to do. My group (Meredith Hyatt, Emily Melton, and Patsy McQuaid) was very successful in doing what everyone wanted to do plus a few things. We went with a general plan of what we wanted to see then went with the flow based on what everyone felt like doing. Firenze is the keeper of the world’s most precious paintings and artifacts from the Renaissance. With such a great honor, Florence has become the Mecca of art lovers, history buffs, and culture seekers alike. Student passes, that we purchased at the Uffizi, enabled us to skip the long lines to see most of these famous pieces of history. On Friday after resting from the long journey, we went to the Palazzo Pitti. The Palazzo Pitti is a palace that was built in the second half of the 15th century by Filippo Brunelleschi for Luca Pitti. The palace was later sold to and used by the Medici family as their main residence. The palace is now a museum of art and other artifacts of the Medici family. The palace was beautiful, especially the architecture which was a classical roman style. All of the buildings and palazzos in Florence were absolutely phenomenal, still standing as they were in the 15th century. As Fanny Burney put it “Traveling is the ruin of all happiness! There's no looking at a building after seeing Italy.”
We continued our sightseeing adventure early on Saturday morning, starting with the Uffizi. This was by far my favorite museum because of the vast number of diverse pieces ranging from the early middle ages to the late renaissance and later. The emergence of the Renaissance was visible through the progression in style from the religious two dimensional medieval altarpieces of Giotto to the realistic neoclassical pagan reversions of Botticelli. I was excited to be able to view Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus and La Primavera. These famous paintings are main attractions that everyone comes to see. Although I have viewed the Birth of Venus many times in a book or on a poster, seeing it up close made me in awe of the Venus’s grace and the beauty of the pastel water against her glowing pale skin. I also noticed things about many paintings that I had never noticed when looking at them in a book. Behind Venus there are white horses running along the shore. After venturing through the many galleries at the Uffizi I felt like a distinguished and cultured scholar of art. To give our brains a rest from intensely analyzing priceless paintings we found the market of San Lorenzo and did some shopping. Firenze is famous for the leather market of San Lorenzo. I learned how bartering works in a market when purchased a leather jacket from a vendor. I felt accomplished as I left the market with my jacket that I have always wanted for a price much lower than I had originally planned to pay. My leather jacket and I spent the rest of the day bonding as it went everywhere around Firenze with me.
After getting a pizza with pepperonis (which is rare in Italy) we decided to go burn it off by climbing the 467 stairs to the top of the Duomo. The hike up was exhausting but the view at the top was a beautiful panoramic view of the city. I meet a few new friends at the top of the Duomo who went to Stanford and were studying in Switzerland. After climbing the Duomo we headed over to the famous political Piazza della Signoria where the most activity is found in Florence. In the piazza there are several magnificent sculptures and statues such as the “Perseus with the Head of Medusa” by Cellini. After taking pictures, we got gelato at a very nice gelateria where I made the mistake of ordering a medium cone that was much larger than what I imagine a “medium” cone to be. I became a “woman vs. food” attraction in the square when as I took on the huge cone, a few people stared at me while others cheered me on, it was quite a hilarious sight! A huge storm came out of nowhere and the crowds began to disperse, so we ended up going to the Borgello just down the street. I felt scandalous upon entering having never seen so many naked people (sculptures) in my life! There is something about a sculpture that is just capturing; it is not a flat painting but a 3D figure that appears to be a living piece of marble. The highlight of the Bargello is Donatello’s David which is a more feminine boyish version of David than Michelangelo’s David. Donatello’s David almost poses in a sassy stance with one hand on hip and a big sword in the other hand.
We ended our last day in Florence by going to the Galleria Accademia and the Museo Archeologicp. Viewing the David for a second time since my last trip to Florence was as glorious as the first time I saw him. The rippling muscles and the tall 17 foot confident stance is what make David my favorite masterpiece. Michelangelo represents the raw strength of God’s power through the strong powerful hands of David. After standing in awe for about thirty minutes we left the Accademia and went to the Museo Archeologico. To my surprise I actually enjoyed the museum especially the morbid mummies. The Egyptian artifacts were some of the exact ones that I had seen in National Geographic Magazine. We headed to the train station and caught a train back to Arezzo. We were ready to get back to Sansepolcro on the 6:30 bus, which turned out to be non-existent. We were stuck in Arezzo for 3 hours so we ended up eating at an Italian Chinese place. The experience was interesting but we were ready to get back to our familiar Sansepolcro. My first independent travel weekend was educational and fun, and I am learning more and more with each new experience.
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