We left Paris on Bastille Day, July 14 - their Independence Day. After last night's festivities at the Bastille Monument, the town was very quiet at the early hour we were picked up and transported to the train station!

Good thing we got to the bus station early (6:30 a.m.). This was the first time we had experienced European trains, and without any explanation about all the documents I had been given, I didn't know what was the ticket and what was the reservation (separate documents). Compound this lack of information with trying to communicate in French, well, this was challenging. After pulling our luggage through the halls of the train station, we finally got to the right train by reading the HUGE monitor on the wall. Further, the conductor was especially helpful in getting us in the right car before our 7:54 a.m. departure. We didn't have any problem finding our assigned seats.

The trip was long but so scenic. All of us who had CD players quickly plugged them into our ears, to help pass the time. We had packed snacks for our all day journey. The girls shuffled from one end of the car to the other to chat with each other. It was a very relaxing trip.

We arrived in Florence at 6:47 that evening. We moved our luggage off the train and rolled it to the transport bus that waited for us. Were we ever delighted to find our greeter and bus driver! We were tired! And, we were thrilled to have luggage with wheels, which made our lives SO much easier!

In Florence - the city of Dante - the Italian language was born. This is the city of Michelangelo, Leonardo, Galileo, Machiavelli, the Medici family (the Grand Dukes of Tuscany), and many others. The artwork is exceptional! The mosaics in the Baptistry, the marble work in the Duomo, the David at the Accademie, and the special collections at the Uffizi are incredible!

Our hotel, Hotel Pensione Ausonia, had one very small elevator that you took to the second floor, which was the lobby. We all got our room assignments and got our luggage to our rooms. We were thrilled to see that the hotel had Internet connection! For only 3,000 lira (~$1.50) you could connect for 30 minutes or 5,000 lira (~$2.50) for 60 minutes. Our group filled the roster every evening for Internet connection. We all enjoyed hearing from our friends and family back home! The rooms of this one star hotel were WONDERFUL!!! I was in a room with a full bathroom, 4 of us in the room, and a balcony. Because we were all in need of doing laundry, the room soon became the "clothesline" quarters, with dripping laundry everywhere.

The first night, we went to an Italian restaurant on our street. It was GREAT! However, anything would have probably tasted great! I had pizza with artichoke hearts and mushrooms. It was WONDERFUL! Some of the girls ordered something called cherry cola. It wasn't like the cherry cokes we have in the States. Ick!

The next morning, after our specially prepared breakfast by the hotel (including coffee latte, croissants, yogurt, and cereal, we met our guide, Patrizia Cavallini, for our 3-hour walking tour. She first acquainted us with some much needed Italian words:

Quanto costa - how much cost?

Buongiomo - Good morning

Scusi - excuse me

Parla Inglese - Speak English?

Grazie -thank you

Prego - You're welcome

It is a lovely city of 400,000 people. It was fun walking through the narrow streets and noting the architecture from the Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance periods. However, there are plenty of pickpockets and gypsies. One of the gypsies almost got in Evvy's fanny pack. Scary.

1. Our first stop was the Accademia Gallery founded in 1784. It is a university. This was an incredible place!!!

• The first thing we saw were "The Prisoners" by Michelangelo. There are four statues that remain unfinished by the famous sculpturer. They are called: Atlantis, The Young Slave, The Bearded Slave, and The Awakening Slave. You can still see the chisel marks left by Michelangelo. Made you feel like you were seeing a piece of art in process instead of being 500 years old. What was most striking is the sense of oppression and the sign of struggle between the spirit and the material.
• That is where the famous David by Michelangelo stands. Incredible work in white marble created by a 26 year old Michelangelo (1475-1564) in 1501-1504!!! This marble statue stands 13 ½' tall. This statue originally stood in front of the Palazzo Vecchio in Piazza della Signoria. It symbolized the liberty of the people of Florence and their will to defend it. However, it was moved to the Accademia Gallery in 1882, to prevent pigeons from using it as their resting spot, causing the deterioration of this fragile and porous marble.
• There is a room to the left of The David with student sculptures. While there, I thought about Amy and wondered if someday she would like to be a student here. The students had holes drilled in each of the pieces, to help them learn perspective.
• As we exited the Accademia, there were works of art from the 13^th and 15^th centuries. Incredible that they could be preserved and look so GREAT! One of my favorites was The Tree of Life by Pacino Di Buonaguida and painted between 1305 and 1310.

1. Duomo: The Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore - Our next stop was the Duomo, which is a huge cathedral. It is beautiful and awesome! Some of the girls climbed the 465 steps to the top of the dome. It must have been beautiful! But standing under the huge dome was impressive. The frescos on the ceiling told a story of the passage into heaven. At the back of the huge Cathedral was a beautiful clock. The floor was made of a pattern of varying colors of marble.

The city fathers of Florence almost bit off more than they could chew in 1296 when they commissioned a cathedral so grand that it would be "impossible to make it either better or more beautiful with the industry and power of man." The Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (commonly called "Il Duomo"), was originally designed by architect Arnolfo di Cambio, but the design was continually changed by various committees over the years. Finally, in 1417, the church was ready for its roof. The only problem was that nobody had the faintest idea how to create a dome big enough to cover the huge, octagonal center of the building. Fortunately, Florence had architect Filippo Brunelleschi. Though his proposal was initially considered as crackpot as some of the other ideas for topping the church, his plan finally prevailed, and in 1419 he was given the job. To cover the church, Brunelleschi designed a dome within a dome. The interior dome helped support the exterior dome with a series of braces. The tall, exterior dome features eight graceful rock ribs curving up to the tip. The stately dome was completed in 1436, but the facade of the church was not finished until 1883.

 

2. Giotto's Belltower - The belltower of Santa Maria del Fiore, one of the most beautiful in Italy, was an (extremely costly) invention of genius by Giotto which was created more as a decorative monument than a functional one. In 1334 the great artist was nominated overseer of the building site for the new cathedral, when work on it had already been interrupted for over thirty years, and was commissioned to continue the construction. However, instead of concentrating on developing Arnolfo di Cambio's project for the Cathedral, Giotto preferred to create something of his very own: the belltower. The artist worked from 1334 to 1337, the year of his death, on the addition of the new architectural element that was to enrich the square, but only lived to see the first floor of his project completed, where the pointed entrance stands. His painter's formation led him to proceed with the external revestment while the building was going up, thus slowing down its completion. White marble from Carrara, green marble from Prato and red marble from Siena colour the surface while also dividing it up with classical rigor; a figurative "narrative" (an indispensible form of expression for a painter) runs around all four sides, carried out with a series of octagonal tiles in relief by Andrea Pisano (who completed the South Doors of the Baptistery in 1336) from designs that were carried out in part by Giotto himself.

 

3. The Baptistery - Right across from the Duomo is the beautiful Baptistery. It was built using the same mixture of colored marble as the Duomo, only with gold doors, known as The Paradise's door.

The origins of the temple dedicated to St. John the Baptist, later patron saint of the city, are still uncertain. According to tradition, it was founded in Roman times and dedicated to the god Mars. Several sarcophagi have in fact been found in this area, today in the Museum of the Opera del Duomo, as was the famous statue of Mars, which mediaeval chronacles tell us stood at the entrance to Ponte Vecchio. However some scholars think that the building was the Praetorium and the statue that of a barbarian king.

The octagonal plan of the Baptistery

The Church of San Giovanni became an official part of history on March 4th 897, when Amedeo, the Count Palatine and envoy of the Emperor, sat beneath the portico in front of the "Basilica of San Giovanni Battista" to administer justice. The church was apparently acting as the cathedral in this period in the place of Santa Reparata. The second historic date came on November 6th 1059 when, immediately after his election, the Florentine Pope Nicholas II reconsacrated the basilica, which was to be the new bishopric. This reconsacration leads us to believe that the temple had in the meantime been radically transformed, or perhaps reconstructed. The eight segments of the cupola had certainly been completed by then as well as the semicircular apse which was added on the west side to contain the altar: the three doors opened on the other three sides. Bishop Ranieri was buried in the church in 1113.

Gates of Paradise

These doors, completed from 1425 to 1452, are subdivided into 10 panels without frames. They deal with 10 stories from the Old Testament. Considering the intricate chisel work highlighted by the gilding, the doors were so splendid that Michelangelo, 50 years later, defined them as worthy to be the "Gates of Paradise."

 

4. Palazzo della Signoria of Palazzo Vecchio - What a BEAUTIFUL palace! The paintings are immense! They are the size of sides of houses, or larger. Gold leaf glitters everywhere. The statues are symbols of empires gone by. As I walked down the marble steps, the thought of having a beautiful flowing gown on and gracing these steps with very a very shallow rise was very vivid. The steps dipped where many before me had walked hundreds of years ago. No surface was left unadorned. The ceilings were just as spectacular as the walls and floors. The Hall of Maps was filled with maps all over the walls and had the largest globe I'd ever seen in the middle of the room. The floors were made of chips of multi-colored marble. The pillars on the outside of the palace had nails sticking upwards on the platforms to discourage pigeons from standing. I climbed to the top of the tower, which was the lookout with the gun portals.

We walked by Uffizi Gallery but did not enter to see the magnificant artwork it holds. The statues on the outside were incredible!

The construction of the Uffizi palace began in 1560, when the Duke Cosimo I dei Medici decided to build a special seat for the offices (hence the name "uffizi") of the thirteen magistracies, that is for the administrative center of the Florentine State.

The Uffizi Gallery covers an area of about 8.000 sq.m.. and contains one of the most important collections of art of all times, including classical sculpture and paintings on canvas and wood by 13th to 18th century Italian and foreign schools. The Gallery of the Uffizi was also the first museum ever to be opened to the public: in fact the Grand Duke granted permission to visit it on request from the year 1591. Its four centuries of history make the Uffizi Gallery the oldest museum in the world.

Cosimo I de' Medici decided to build the Palace, whose construction was started by Giorgio Vasari in 1560 and later completed by Buontalenti, who designed the famous Tribune, to house the administrative offices (or "uffizi") of the Government because Palazzo Vecchio, which also overlooks Piazza della Signoria, had become too small to hold them all.

We had a WONDERFUL time shopping on the famous bridge with gold and silver shops - the oldest bridge in Florence. The items are made in Florence. Incredible and beautiful! As you walk by the rich store fronts, almost all of the inventory of the shop is displayed in the windows. Prices are good. In fact, the exchange rate in Italy was excellent! I got great values for the dollar! You can find gold, silver, crystal, leather, toys, pottery, and linens. This bridge crosses the narrowest part of the Arno River. It was constructed in 1345. During the 1500's, when the Medici family moved to Pitti Palace, they wanted a corridor that linked the Uffizi and the Palazzo Vecchio to the new Palace. Thus, a hallway over the shops of the goldsmiths on the bridge was built.

It was fun to see a bride and groom walking through the streets in their beautiful wedding attire! The bottom of the bride's gown was black from the street.

In the spirit of exploring, we found our way back to the hotel, with the use of our map. We were so excited!

We ate at a delightful Italian restaurant and had wonderful food! The waiter made the difference! Whenever we asked for something, he would say "No Problem!"

Today we traveled by train for 3 hours to Venice - a city of approximately 320,000 citizens. The train time went fast. We took snacks on the train along with CD players and journals to pass the time. I had 5 girls in my cabin. The girls talked about what fun it is to be in Girl Scouts. They talked about selling cookies to the high school boys, how no one makes fun of them since they told them about going to Europe. They talked about how hard it was in middle school being a Girl Scout. Before our ride was over, Marie and Sarah Kaiser found themselves laying on the luggage racks. Sarah stripped down to her bra and was lying on her tummy. Her boobs were hanging between the bars. Too funny! I told her I would unhook her bra. She laughed and quickly flipped over. Too funny!! We arrived in Venice and I fell in love with this city.

Our escort, Gabriella, who was a perfect welcoming party to Venice, greeted us. The next order of business was taking a water taxi (motoscafi) to St. Marks Square. Afterall, this is how the residents get around Venice. The trip was awesome. I love Venice! The ride was breathtaking. I fell in love with the 12^th, 13^th, and 14^th architecture. We rode along the S-shaped Canal Grande, which divides the city into two halves. Our journey would eventually lead to the Adriatic Sea. The view of all the buildings was beautiful! The historic buildings were incredible! The flowers in the flower boxes. The danger that the city is sinking, and in another 100 years, unless something is done to preserve it, others will not be able to see this beautiful city! It is amazing to see the ancient buildings, the statues, and the strong structures.

The boat pulled up to a slip on the edge of St. Mark's Square. Napoleon referred to the Square as "the finest drawing room in all Europe." This was crowded with people - tourists! Our tour guide, Mr. Bruno, met us and began our tour. He spoke broken English, but was so enthusiastic to share his beautiful city with us.

We walked across the Bridge of Sighs. The bridge looks across from the 2 small prison windows and was the last look of loved ones as the prisoners walked to their death. What horrible experience this must have been. And the loved ones didn't have much space to look into the covered bridge; the crossbars on the windows were very heavy and thick. As you stand on the bridge you can see the beautiful flowers hanging from the flats - the white flowers, the red ones. You can see the next few bridges, with the gondolas passing under them. So romantic!

Doge's Palace was our first stop, where restoration was being done. There are parts of this Palace that are beautiful, and others that are so horrible and filled with terrible feelings of torture and death.

The next stop was St. Mark's Cathedral. WOW! Beautiful! The water from the canal was still at the doorway of the Cathedral. The mosaics over each doorway and at the top of the building were breathtaking! The finite detail involved in making such elaborate pictures must have taken many years. The mosaic floor of this beautiful building was from the XIV and XV centuries.

And then we went to Vecchia Murano Glass Factory. We watched a Master Glass Blower make a vase out of liquid glass. Incredible! The temperatures to melt this glass were in the four digits. He doesn't have much time to work on this creation before the glass cannot be returned to the oven without cracking or breaking. We left this area and walked into the showroom. This was beautiful … and a tad bit scary with all the glass and threat that it could break without much effort. However, I was very wrong. The salesperson banged one of the vases on the desk in front of us, and the vase didn't shatter, crack, or break. Each of the pieces produced by Murano has been hand-made by a Venetian master and expert bead workers who carry on the ancient technique of lampworking and crystal cutting. We all ohhed and ahhed at all the beautiful creations, made our purchases, and told them good-bye.

We walked across St. Mark's Square totally in ah at the grandiosity of these ancient buildings. I walked to the Adriatic Sea. I dipped my hand in the famous sea.

Our time had come to an end in Venice. We met our guide to go back to the train station at one of the statues on the edge of the San Marco Wharf. Our time was entirely too short in this delightful city! I loved Venice!

As we made our way along the waterway, we saw a stop light on the water. All the boats had to halt as the boats from the other direction made their passage through the canal. Beyond that, the boat ride was delightful as we past the Bascilla of Saint Maria of the Health, the former Customs Building (on the tip of the island), the Rialto Bridge built in 1592, the homes of residents with the flowers hanging out the windows, and the gondolas floating up and down the canals with the romantic couples. No other Western European city has so many historic buildings built on water.

We returned to Florence by train. It was a very quiet trip.

This is a beautiful church and houses the Archdiocese of Florence. Like all the other Catholic churches we have been in, there is a large, oversized bowl of Holy Water. The marblework, the Gothic arches, the frescos, the many chapels, the beauty of this less-frequented church was relaxing.

Santa Maria Novella is the first of the great Florentine basilicas. Its name, "Novella", comes from the fact that it was built on the site of a 9th century oratory, called Santa Maria delle Vigne. In 1221 this church and the surrounding area was assigned to the Dominican monks, who immediately began to transform it. The elaborate facade of inlaid black and white marble is a real masterpiece: it was started in 1300 and later completed by Leon Battista Alberti in 1470. The frescoes inside the Cloisters are the work of Paolo Uccello and the Florentine school of the 13th to 15th century.

The decoration, in black and white marble, on the facade of Santa Maria Novella can perhaps be considered to be the most beautiful of all the Florentine churches.

Piazza Santa Maria Novella, with its original five-sided shape, is one of the largest squares in the old city centre of Florence: it was in fact enlarged several times to be able to contain the crowds of people drawn there by the preaching of the Dominican monks, who had settled in this part of town in 1221 and built a convent. The size of the square was later to make it the obvious place to hold the Palio dei Cocchi or Chariot race, today only recorded by two marble obelisks set on top of two bronze turtles by Giambologna.

1. Piazzale Michelangelo

We took the bus to Michelangelo Plaza and got great panoramic shots of the city. An avenue winds upwards between the cypress trees reaching the enormous Michelangelo Square with magnificent views of the city and surroundings.

The square takes its name from the great bronze group that Poggi placed in its centre, a real "pastiche" of the work of Michelangelo, composed of copies of his David (now in the Accademia Gallery) and the four allegorical figures Pope Clement VII commissioned him to carry out for the Medici tombs in the New Sacristy in San Lorenzo (these were for the tombs of Lorenzo Duke of Urbino and Giuliano Duke of Nemours).

We walked down the beautiful pathway from our vantage point of Florence to further explore this wonderful city. Along the way, there was a cove of beautiful rock formations; no doubt hundreds and perhaps thousands of years old.

 

2. Piazza Santa Croce (pronounced "crochet")

The huge rectangular space of Piazza Santa Croce, in front of the Franciscan Basilica, is the result of a 13th-14th century urban project.

Santa Croce has traditionally always been used for important civic and religious events because it is large enough to contain crowds of people. This is where the Franciscan preachers, as well as St. Bernardino of Siena, during the plague of 1437, addressed the population. This was also where Carnival and May Day festivities were celebrated, as well as tournaments, jousting and carousels, especially during the Renaissance, with the enthusiastic participation of the younger members of the Florentine aristocracy.

We bought a traditional Italian lunch on the square and ate it in the Piazza. Sarah Jane enjoyed playing with the pigeons.

 

3. Basilica of Santa Croce

The Basilica of Santa Croce dominates the entire square and was constructed between 1295 and 1443. It is the largest Franciscan Church in Italy. This Gothic church has beautiful stained glass windows throughout, with many frescos and a beautiful sanctuary. About 300 men of great importance for letters, music, science, art, and politics are buried in this church. As you walk down the aisle of the church, you see the names of these men on the floor, in the walls, and in "funeral beds" on the sides of the church. Tombs of Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564), Niccolo Macchiavelli (1469-1527), and Galileo (1564-1642), are huge and definitely in the "don't miss" category.

 

 

4. Piazza della Signoria

Piazza della Signoria has been the political heart of the city from the Middle Ages to the present day. Its gets its name from the most important monument there, Palazzo della Signoria, designed by Arnolfo di Cambio in 1298-99 for the seat of the Republican government and which was later to host the Gonfalonier of Justice and the Priors of the Arts (it was in fact at first called Palazzo dei Priori).

The square however is not just the "civil" center of Florence, it is also a splendid open-air museum.

The statues in the square are incredible. Apart from the great sculptures lined up in front of the facade of Palazzo Vecchio (among them the copy of David by Michelangelo), we noticed the Fountain of Neptune by Ammannati, the equestrian statue of Cosimo I dÈ Medici by Giambologna, Hercules and Caccus, and Perseus holding up the head of the Medusa.

 

5. San Lorenzo Market

Perhaps the area the girls enjoyed most was the shopping time in the San Lorenzo Market. There were lots of stalls of vendors selling their wares, the largest outdoor market in Florence. You could find anything from scarves, hats, leather goods, clothes, or whatever you might imagine.

Tonight we went back to the restaurant we ate at the day before. It was great! We were really excited when we got our same waiter with his "No problem!" remarks. Too much fun!!

As a group, we loved the slower pace of Florence compared to Paris. The girls got some freedom to move around and not be hooked to our hips with every move. Shopping was ever present on the girl's agendas. However, we told them that we had an obligation to their parents to make it culturally enriching. Finally, on our last day in Florence, we told them we would do the culturally enriching stuff first, and then shop. They lived for the moment that we would tell them to go shopping in groups. The girls LOVED the ice cream and ate lots of it! It rained on our trip up until the point we bought umbrellas. We didn't need them after that!

I loved Italy!!! I'm ready to go back!