Give me a minute… just trying to finish up this letter…
Dear Michelangelo,
Hi. It’s me, Sarah. Just wanted to let you know I got a chance to visit Florence this past weekend and thought it was such a beautiful city. I now understand why you loved it so much! But I have a bit of a bone to pick with you. So, you take this piece of abandoned marble from the courtyard of the Cathedral of Florence and in two years you just work it into the most beautiful creature to ever grace this earth? Shame on you, for making me and most every other woman out there fawn over a silly piece of marble! If you’re such a creative and artistic genius, couldn’t you have just like, made a real man? Guess I’ll have to settle for someone else… and I’ll just hope and pray that he’s a lot like David. Oh! And you know those mean “No photo!” museum people? Yeah, well they told me I wasn’t allowed to take any pictures of David, but I just pretended like I didn’t understand them. See, the picture? Don’t David and I look so good together? Well, Michelangelo… keep it real until next time. Baci (hugs), Sar.
Ok, sorry about that. I’m back. So in my last post I told you about how my friend and I did the whole Couch Surfing thing, but I think I left out all the other stuff we did in Florence. You’re dying to know, aren’t you?
The four hour slow train wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, and it got us to Florence at about 1 p.m. We were starving, so we stopped at this great little café and had frittatas, and I apologize that I can’t remember what the place was called, because it was the best sandwich I’ve had since I’ve been in Europe. After lunch we were meandering through this really great market and ended up running into three Temple Rome students who were with a class in Florence for the weekend. They were headed to the Uffizi museum with their professor, so we tagged along with them and ended up getting a guided tour by Paolo (their prof.). I have to say, I wasn’t blown away by the Uffizi, but I am still glad I got the chance to go and to experience it.
Our next stop was to the basilica of San Lorenzo to see the Old Sacristy by Brunelleschi and the New Sacristy by my man Michelangelo. We ventured next to the Duomo where the wait to go to the top of the dome was really long, so we got some amazing pizza for lunch and sat in the grass (yes, grass) that was placed all around the Duomo for Florens, an event aimed at enhancing Italian culture and environmental heritage. The grass really was a nice touch, and people were fascinated by it! Since we couldn’t get our view from the dome, we headed toward the Forte di Belvedere on our way to Piazzale Michelangelo for a splendid panorama view of all of Florence!
After a very long and eventful Saturday night out in Florence, we hopped the train Sunday afternoon back to Rome. Though we never made it up to the top of the dome in the Duomo, I’d say our Couch Surfing experience, museum visits and the view from Piazzale Michelangelo made for an incredible weekend.
And Michelangelo? Well, he really is just that good… even if he is only a statue; I still totally fell in love with David. I know, I know, silly me. I should have known that David would be such a heart breaker!