Florence and Pisa

Sorry I haven't been keeping the blog very well up to date! It seems like there is no time for anything now that I'm on the downward slope of it all! So, let's see, what all have I done since I wrote last?? Oh, Florence and Pisa! :D
Okay, so we went to Florence via train, which was pretty exciting in itself for me, because I had never been on a plane before! It was sooooo nice riding on a train. It's not really noisy like a plane, and way more comfortable than either a plane or a car. We had a little booth-room thing to ourselves for part of it, and had to share with a 2 other people for part of the way. But it is so smooth and relaxing to travel by train.
We got off on our stop at Florence Rifredi, which is the train station outside of town. We then switched trains to a small local one that just goes back and forth from the Rifredi station to the Central station in Florence. We accomplished that without any problems, and were finally in Florence four hours (maybe more) later. We first tried to find the bus depot so that we could take it to our hostel, but we passed by a shooping center inside the station, and found a place that did manicures and pedicures. We REALLY wanted to get pedicures (our feet are horrible from all the walking!), but they required appointments. Though that part sucked, we did ask them about the bus depot, and told them which part of town we needed to go to. It turns out that it was actually a lot closer to the train station than we thought, and she said we should have no problem walking there! She was really nice, and even gave us some maps for free with loads of information on them. :D
So, we headed off on our trek through the very historic Florence (or Firenze, as the Italians say). It really is a beautiful city located in a valley of the Tuscan Hills. Truly beautiful. So some time later, we FINALLY arrived at our hostel, and proceeded to the 3rd floor where the front office was. We got all checked in, took "the lift" (aka elevator) to the very top floor, and were shown our room. By the way, that is the smallest elevator I have ever seen in my life. Three people can barely fit inside if they all cram in and stand sideways! So he let us into our room, and we were shocked! It was actually really very nice and very clean, too! We had a private 4 person suite (because we have all seen waaaaay to many horror movies about mixed dorm hostels!), and hit the jackpot. It had an entryway room with a balcony looking over Florence, a bathroom complete with clean sink, toilet, shower, and bidet (a very Italian bathroom fixture. Google it.). The bedroom had two queen sized beds in it that They really fairly new and very comfortable. However, the absolute BEST thing about this hostel was that it had air conditioning! I was so shocked and soooo happy! No where has ac, let alone a hostel! It all worked out very well, because divided between four people for two nights, it turned out to be only like €15 a night per person! It was sooo cheap!
So after we all got settled down in the hostel, we decided to try to find some dinner and do some sightseeing. They have so many wonderful buildings and sculptures in Florence, I couldn't even begin to describe all of them to you! When it was a little later, we decided to grab a quick glass of wine and head back to the hostel. However, wine lead to cocktails, which lead to dancing in an amazing club! No worries Mom, none of us were drunk or anything--just having a good time. :D Piazza dei Miracoli
The next day, Gloria and I got up extra early to catch the train to Pisa! Sarah and Julia wanted to sleep some more, and since they live in Europe, it's nothing for them to pop down here for the weekend. It is so cheap to get around inside Europe it makes me sick thinking about how much I spent on my ticket to fly over here!
So anyway, back to Pisa. It was about an hour long train ride to Pisa, which was not bad at all. Once we were there, we caught the bus right out front of the station that took us directly to Piazza dei Miracoli, where the tower, the catherdral, and babtistery all reside. It really took my breath away seeing these building that are sooooo old and sooo close together! Better yet, they have done a truly wonderful job of keeping the area from getting too comercialized. There are still large areas of grass surrounding the three buildings, which is very rare in Italy. Gloria and I did the typical tourist thing of taking pictures holding up the tower! It was a blast, and we really enjoyed our stay there. We stayed about two hours, then turned around, went back the the train station, and caught the next train back to Florence.
Once back in Florence, we met Sarah and Julia back at the hostel. They had spent the moring shopping at all the wonderful Italian shops. Gloria was really tired, so she opted to stay back and sleep while Julia, Sarah, and I went to see the Santa Maria del Fiore, which is Florence's trademark domed church that towers over the city. The inside is truly beautiful, but we did one better: we took 463 steps clear to the top of the dome to over look the beautiful Tuscan city! The stairs were murder. They were hundreds of years old, the stairways were narrow and crooked. Sometimes they were spiral staircases that went several stories high, and other times you had to duck and lean to one side to avoid hitting your head on the inside of the dome! Halfway up, though, we got a breather. We got to walk around the inside of the church and see the beautiful painting ceiling up close and personal. It's said that Dante got his inspiration for The Inferno from staring at the depictions of heaven and hell on the ceiling of this very church. Then we continued to climb up the inside of the dome. The dome has two layers with a small gap in between the two: this is where we were climbing! It was all very dark and it felt like I was in a medieval prison! But the result was soooo worth it. The view was absolutely stunning. We stayed up there for well over half an hour on the top piece of the dome, just looking out over the city and the hills. When we finally did leave, we again took 463 stairs back down. Then we continued to walk around town and see all the beautiful buildings and churches, and finally ended up on the Michaelangelo plazza on one of the hills on the outskirts of town, with a complete replica of the statue David in its center. Even better, we got to sit back, relax, enjoy some gelato, and watch the sun set over Florence and the Tuscan hills. I will never forget this heart-stopping sight as long as I live.
The next morning, we got up, gathered our belongings, and headed to the train station to catch our ride to Rifredi, before catching our actual train back to Venice. All and all, I absolutely loved this trip, and really wish that we had had more time there! There is soooo much to see, and sooooo little time to see it!