Planes, Trains, and Automobiles... and feet.: Pisa and Firenze

It's been a while since I last posted... This is mainly due to the fact that the wifi in the last hostel was absolutely no good. The fact that Florence was so cool more than made up for that fact.

So last I left you, we were in Milan. Our last day, we went and saw San Siro. This is the football (soccer) stadium that AC Milan and Internazionale play at. It is an impressively large stadium. Also, the whole walk to the stadium from the metro, there was a wall that was covered with horse and pony paintings and graffiti. It was confusing until we got to the end and saw that there was a statue of Leonardo's horse at the end (which was gigantic) and a big polo grounds too.

We hopped on a train heading for Florence that afternoon and by 5:00pm we were there. Immediately we noticed a few things. Florence likes their leather shops, gelatto, and coffee. They also have wonderful architecture and a great history. If you want to hear a lot of Florentine historical names of things that sound impressive, read Dan Brown's Inferno. I read it last year and it was fun to see the places he was talking about (places like the Ponte Vecchio, Plazzo Vecchio, Vasari Corridor, Plazzo Pitti, Casa di Dante, and the Boboli Gardens). Also, the first night we were there, we ate at a small restaurant in the city and the food there was soooo good! Florence knows food.

Our first full day there, we took a day trip to see a cathedral and tower in a small town not too far from Florence. It's an interesting sight because of the way the tower sits on the ground. It's kind of crooked. Of course, I am talking about the small town of Pisa. And the tower is, you may have guessed already, the leaning tower of Pisa. That was very cool to see in real life. That is something you see in movies and it's almost like you don't believe it is real until you actually see it.

We got back to Florence and walked around some more and then saw a really cool festival type thing going on in front of the Palazzo Vecchio. There were two drum lines and people dressed in royal court type clothes and there were flag throwers all around... It was cool to see their perfomance.

The second day, we started out and did a wine tour at the Tuscan Wine School. They taught us the best way to taste wine and we went to two wineries out in the hills of Tuscany. The vineyards were beautiful and the wine was good too. They also made olive oil at the two wineries we went to, so we got to taste some fresh olive oils too!

The last day, Rosalie went all around shopping and I went strolling around in the Boboli gardens. They are impressive to say the least. They are huge with tons of paths and small little fountains and areas that you wouldn't even know existed if you didn't take all the paths around the gardens.

We then got on one of the high-speed trains to head to Naples. During the train ride, we got up to at least 298 km/hr (185 mph) fast! We arrived in Naples and made our way to the hostel. This hostel is great. The management is friendly and the place is clean, and the wifi is good. We went out to get something to eat and stopped in a pizzeria that the hostel manager recommended. One thing to note about Naples is that pizza was invented here. So that's what we had and it was good.

Cant wait to see what tomorrow holds.