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Florence

Florence! Beautiful Florence! It's been an amazing three days and I didn't want to leave. Florence is a really beautiful city - it's more grandiose and white than Rome. Luckily the weather held up during the most important times and it was sunny or cloudy all three days during the daytime.

I'm going to try something different for this post, since there's so many photos to share! I'll summarize the days and make a "gallery" for each day. Some photos will have captions with explanations below them. :)

Friday, February 7th: We arrived in Florence around noon. We got to our hotel - Hotel Astoria, which is a 5-minute walk to the Duomo! The rooms were divided by apartment roommates. So I was with Brittany and Dakota. Dakota went to stay with a relative, and Taylor didn't like his roommates too much (who are hard partiers - they're OK guys but just not great roommates due to them staying up late every night) so he stayed with us. Our room had three beds - two beds on the first floor and there's a flight of stairs leading to a giant king bed, or really: two beds pushed together.

After quickly settling in and grabbing lunch near the Duomo, we went off on a guided tour of the city for the rest of the day.
Click here to go to Day 1 Album!
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Saturday, February 8th: In the morning, Brittany, Taylor, Dom, and I went to go inside the Cathedral and The Duomo before we had to go to another "trip" with API. We got a ticket and went underneath the Cathedral to see the crypts of priests who were buried there. Apparently Brunelleschi, a really famous sculptor/painter, is buried there and I didn't know!!! I am so upset that I didn't get to see it. Someday I'll go back again and see it. After seeing the crypt we walked out and entered the side of the Cathedral and we began our 467-step ascent up the Duomo's top! It was painful, sweaty (I'm out of shape!), and really scary once we entered the cupola, but oh man - the view. The view and fresh air was certainly worth it. We climbed to the top of the Duomo before anyone was awake back home in the US - how about that?!

Afterwards we went to the Verrazzano Castle with API where we toured the castle and its wine cellars and did some wine tasting. This castle was the world's first grape growing and wine producing area to be declared as such by an official proclamation.
Click here to go to Day 2 Album! 
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Sunday, February 9th: This day was full of museums before heading back to Rome. First was a guided tour in the Palazzo Vecchio Museum, then I went to the Galleria dell'Accademia where Michelangelo's David stands with Brittany and Christina. I was a little miffed that we weren't allowed to take photos in the Galleria (there was even metal detectors for some reason?). But like any other tourist, I took a few sneaky photos. At the end of this day, we took one last stop just outside Florence at the San Miniato a Monte where you could see all of Florence. Then it's a 4-hour drive back to Rome.
Click here to go to Day 3 Album!

On another note - today (Feb 10th), Taylor and I booked our trip to Athens, Greece from Feb 28th to March 2nd!!! :) We'll be staying at a hostel called Pella Inn and it has all the basic amenities as well as being right in the center of Athens. Hopefully it'll be a good place to stay! If not, well, it's only two nights. We'll also be walking a lot anyway! :)

For those curious, my travel schedule looks like this:

February 21st - 23rd: Tuscany (Arezzo and other towns)
February 28th - March 2nd: Athens, Greece
March 6th - 9th: Interlaken, Switzerland

Brittany and I have been talking about a trip to Venice and Paris (and maybe London as a second leg after Paris). I met a girl named Bianca who invited me to spend spring break with her and her roommates to go to Amsterdam, Paris, London and Berlin as one big trip. Still debating on accepting her invite! :)