Italy Part 5

The last post finished with our last night in Rome.  We traveled to Florence the next morning on a Eurostar, in a hour and a half.  The train trip let us see some of the Italian landscape.  There were a lot of mountains and farms between Rome and Florence.  The train stations and walls near the tracks are all covered with graffiti.  They have the typical gang style tags and they have the more creative works as well.  I figure if you're going spend time painting something on a wall it should at least be creative.  Unfortunately, I was not able to get any pictures being on the train.  Anyways we arrived in Florence with no problems and took a cab to our hotel.  The cab driver told us that the school students and bus drivers were on strike that day.  Apparently, strikes are a one day affair in Italy.  We're not 100% sure what the strike was about or if we fully understood what he was telling us.  We didn't see any visual evidence of a strike.  We stayed at Hotel Donatello, because Hotel Leonardo was all booked.  The lady at the hotel was the opposite of a sunny day.  We made a concentrated effort to avoid her the rest of our time in Florence.  We were successful!  When we got ourselves situated in the room we went off and saw what Florence had to offer.  These pictures of our hotel room and then us on our first walk of the day. 

Florence has a very different feel than Rome.  It was less busy than Rome and didn't feel as congested as Rome.  The buildings have a different look, and the drivers are less insane.  There were not as many places to visit as there was in Rome, but what it had was more than enough.  The weather was much cooler in Florence than it was in Rome.  We continued our walk and ran into some interesting posters and graffiti.  There are some pictures that give you a feel of how the streets are set up as well.

We kept walking and made it to the Duomo.  This a very large and beautiful church.  It is surrounded by shops and restaurants just like the big man would have wanted it. 

We headed back to the hotel after this walk.  We regrouped then went out for dinner, and then took walk around Florence at night.  We felt a lot safer walking around in Florence then in Rome.  If Rome is New York, Florence is Rock Port.  We still were very aware of our surroundings, but more relaxed.  Anyways, this pictures are from our walk after dinner. 

These pictures mark the end of our first night.  We have many more memories to share with you guys, but I am getting tired of looking at Italy pictures right now.  My next post will have nothing to do with Italy except for the man who is in the pictures.  Don't fret though!  I will continue the Italy posts tomorrow or Tuesday night.