Yesterday, as I didn't have any classes, I took the liberty of sleeping in. For me this means sleeping until it's appropriate to eat lunch; breakfast isn't for me. I had heard from friends about the San Ambrosio market, which i had curiously never seen or nor been to, as it it's literally 100 feet from my front door (I did not know this at the time). This market being one of the biggest and best open air fresh food markets in Firenze, I decided to check it out and see if I could gather some good stuff for lunch. So I walked out of my house and around the corner right in front of my door and whaddya know, there it is. Walking though this place, I saw every kind of fruit, vegetable, meat, cheese, bread...whatever you could possibly want. Long story short, I ended up getting an avocado and a big hunk of fresh, hot, amazing focaccia bread. But now I know where to go to get great food from now on. They also had this cool mini restaurant there enclosed in glass with booths around the outside. To get into a booth, you open the outside glass like a door and slide right into the booth. Every booth had its own door, you never actually walk into a restaurant. Think of it almost like a restaurant of phone booths maybe? Well, I thought it was cool...
After lunch, I decided to spend the rest of the day exploring a bunch of the places in the city I hadn't seen. And by the way, the weather was amazing. I wish it were like that every day. I was walking around the city non stop for probably 3 hours, it was great though.
These first two pictures are taken from one of the bridges that go over the Arno River, looking west out of the city and into the hills. That direction was the way I went walking. I found this really nice park on the river bank. Some lady's huge great dane starting running away from her in the park, so i grabbed the dog's leash. Then she started saying something in Italian to me over and over again which I can only guess meant "it's ok, it's ok" or maybe "let go of my dog". In any case, I dropped the leash.
After walking down the river bank for a while, i crossed the river and starting making my way back the other side. I had heard about Piazzale Michelangelo, a big hill that lets you see the whole city of Florence, and it just so happens that on my walk, I came right up to the steps of the hill. How convenient. In case you care, I live right next to the church with the steeple right in the middle of this next picture (Basilica Santa Croce).
Looking west at the Arno River and the hills beyond it:
This is looking east at the Ponte Vecchio, Il Duomo and much of the city:
Here you can see almost all of the city, with the Duomo(the big dome...) on the left and Santa Croce on the right
Here's two shots of the Ponte Vecchio, the really old bridge with all kinds of cool shops on it. It is about a thousand years old, but i think it was ruined and reconstructed again in like 1300. Still old. Its really nice at night; I'll have to get some sunset pictures at some point.
Then I made my way over to the Duomo and I got some better pictures of it this time. Its funny how it just sort of appears out of nowhere when you're walking towards it. The streets are so narrow that you can't really see anything that isn't right next to you, no matter how tall it is.
I still haven't made it inside the Duomo, but that'll come soon. I'm going to Pisa tomorrow, so I'll let you know how that goes. Thats all for now. Night!
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