Florence is my favorite city I’ve visited in Italy, from my time studying abroad in Metz, so I had to get Melody to come visit.  The Tuscany region, which hosts the well known Florence and Pisa, gives you an intimate view of a place full of history and art.  These cities aren’t the largest, or they may not have the most to do like the major city of Rome, but it’s livelihood is seen through the streets and people.  It’s pretty hard to really justify Florence as a small town, there are major retail outlets that line the streets because of all the tourists that flood through, but it really is one of the most beautiful. As we rode on our train to Florence, Melody and the mandatory journal session!

We arrived from Rome at night, ready to catch a sunset for that night.  I had a viewpoint in mind from my previous stay here, so we beelined the way there. On our way, we found this chalk artist that had an impressive mural on the street below.

We had a pretty long hike, it was roughly a 3.5 kilometer hike through the city up to our viewpoint.  We passed by the Ponte Vecchio bridge, which houses many jewelry shops as seen on the left in the picture below.

And hiked our 45 minutes up to Piazzale Michelangelo, for a spectacular sunset view! The Duomo and Giotto’s Bell tower are the key sites in town, also with some very wonderful museums.  Most people visit Florence to see the statue David, an original made by Michelangelo.

And the many people that were also watching the sunset when we were.

After the sunset, Melody and I headed down back to our hotel, but stopped in this little tapas shop for dinner.  We ended up ordering some Jamon, wine and bruschetta to top off our night.  We were going to have a pretty hectic day to Cinque Terre the day after, passing through Pisa.

We headed back home and rounded the Piazza del Duomo, where we saw the front of the Cathedral of Santa Maria dei Fiore and the Giotto’s Bell Tower.

And the front door of the Cathedral.  We ended up seeing what time the Bell Tower opened the next day, so we could be one of the first and only ones up there for a near sunrise photo!

The next morning, we climbed up the Giotto’s Bell Tower to get a beautiful sunrise like view of the Duomo.

As I walked up, I ended up taking a lot of different perspectives, and tried to get the most out of this view.

Melody!

Mel and Kel.

And we headed down, where I saw some interesting light on the people below.

The Cathedral is one of the most exquisite buildings in the area, and we were able to see it up and close.

And the last, as we prepared our last places to visit in Florence.

Since most tourists aren’t up early enough, I was able to finally get a clean view of the front door of the Cathedral.  We weren’t able to go in, since service wasn’t until later in the day.

And the Cathedral as well as the Giotto’s Bell Tower we climbed up.

Piazza della Signoria with a view of Loggia dei Lanzi on the right, a view of Renaissance sculptures.

Headed back to Ponte Vecchio bridge, you pass across a few museums and an interesting walkway.

Melody looking at some jewelry on Ponte Vecchio Bridge.

One of the few people open in the morning.

We ended up also looking around a few of the flea markets and looking for Italian leathers before we headed off for our short stay in Pisa.

I didn’t end up really doing much in Pisa the last time I was around here, and we ended up doing around the same amount here.  Pisa is well known for the leaning tower, and there really wasn’t as many shops and things to see in the area.  We decided to take a little amount of time to look at the area before we headed off to Cinque Terre that night.

The obligatory photo holding up the leaning tower, or Torre di Pisa

And another, with a little less people around.

The Cattedrale di Pisa with Torre di Pisa in the background

And we left the area awaiting our train to Cinque Terre, stopping for some lunch of pizza and beer!