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Summer Trip (Part II-Florence)

On my previous post, I told you about my first 2 cities in Italy, we took a train from Venezia S. Lucia to Firenze S.M Novella, it's advisable to book the ticket early from trenitalia so you can get the 9euro promo ticket, or else you have to pay full fare 45euro.. The journey took about 2 hours, and when we get there we walked to our hostel. It wasn't the best hostel we stayed in, it doesn't even have air conditioner (and it's bloody hot summer) and they have a lockout from 12 to 2pm. But it has a kitchen, so you can cook your own food there. We paid 18.50/night/person there for 22 bedroom dorm.

 Day 3 - Firenze
Florence (also known as Firenze) is the capital city of Italian region Tuscany. Florence is famous for its history. A centre of European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of the time, Florence is considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, and has been called the Athens Middle Ages. What to love about Florence? hmmmm everything, the view the buildings. Florence is my favorite city in Italy, the view from Ponte Vecchio (one of the oldest bridge in Florence) is amazing,and the gold stores makes it interesting and very unique. My first day in Firenze was not really good, because after halfway exploring the city my camera decided to give up on me, so I have to go back to the hostel and recharge it, and also recharge a little bit of energy. After recharging my camera we went to Pitti Palace, a renaissance palace. Pitti palace have numbers of museum you can visit, and they also offer a combined ticket, I bought the cheapest one 7euro (which valid for Costume gallery  Boboli gardens, porcelain museum, Bardini garden, and museo degli argenti). I really like the costume gallery, because you can see the beautiful theatrical dresses they wore on 16th century. From the top of Boboli Garden you can see the whole Florence which is breath-taking
Palazzo Pitti
Costume Gallery

Boboli Garden
Bardani Garden

The View from the top of Boboli Garden
Our journey is not ended yet, after tired walking through Palazzo Pitti and all the gardens, we went to Piazza Michaelangelo a famous square where you can see the whole Florence from the top, the view is magnificent. But the battle to get there is as magnificent as the view, to get there you have to climb thousand stairs (maybe I'm a bit exaggerating, but it's quite a lot of stairs). It was quite windy when we got there, but it's really beautiful and definitely worth to visit
The View from Piazza Michelangelo

Florence from the Top

 Day 4 - Still at Firenze
After failed attempt exploring the city (due to lowbatt camera), today we decided to do it once again. We started our journey from our hostel crossing Ponte Vecchio to Florence Cathedral and Piazza della Signoria where the famous statue of naked Michelangelo stands (I remember one of tourist that walk next to me said to her friends "Well, Florence is pretty much David's d**k all over the city"). You don't have to pay to enter the Duomo, but the line is very long. There are also lots of museum like Galleria Uffizi, etc. But it's quite expensive so we skipped that museum.

Duomo
Gold Shop at Ponte Vecchio


The view  from Ponte Vecchio
Fontana del Nentunno
After visiting Duomo, we continue our journey to Basilica of Santa Maria Novella, a church located next to the central station. It's the first great basilica in Florence and is the city principal Dominican church. You have to pay to enter the basilica (so again we skipped this paying "exhibition"). The souvenir price is quite expensive here, but we found a store in via nazionale that sell souvenir for only 1euro, and the owner will tell you where you should go to enjoy the beauty of Florence.
Random Building
Me as Pinocchio


SM Novella
We found NS train ticket :D
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