We stayed at the Hotel Cimabue in Florence and visited Pisa and Venice by train.
Florence:
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The Duomo in Florence was one of Andy's favorite buildings.
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In this pic we're holding gelato sandwiched in waffles. They were good, but not worth the 18 euros they cost (about $35 in American money!).
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The red wine in Italy was always good. We had a glass or two at almost every meal. (Except breakfast!)
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The sorbet at one restaurant came in a hollowed out real lemon
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Mmm, gelato...
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A story for my aunts who love purses!
I wheeled and dealed with a street vendor selling them. He wanted 45 euros for this purse (a Burberry knock-off) and I said 5. He countered with 35 euros and I said 10. He kept going lower and I stayed at 10, and ended up getting the purse for 10 euros!
Any time a cop would drive by, he and his friends would pack up the purses (Pradas, Guccis, etc.) in a sheet and take off running. Notice the men standing behind me with their sheets full of purses.
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Michelangelo's "David"
Oddly, next to the sculpture was a computer monitor with a 3-D model of the David. Kids and adults were gathered around that, while the real thing stood next to them. (Shakes head sadly...)
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I noticed in Italy that men tended to wear hemmed jeans. Andy got a shot of one man for me...
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The manager of our hotel would leave at 10 p.m. for the night and we were on the same floor as a bunch of high schoolers on a field trip. They ran through the halls laughing, knocking on doors and yelling to each other until all hours. At one point I became the insane old lady who yells at kids...I opened our door and said to one of them, "Too loud!" The kid had been knocking incessantly at the door next to ours, trying to be let in.
Andy likes graffiti
Venice
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Another thing we had almost every day...gelato
Pisa
We climbed the Leaning Tower of Pisa which was beautiful. The group we went up with consisted of a bunch of high school students who were on a class trip. Right before we went in, one of the student's hopped over a fence a set off an alarm. We were so excited to be going up with them...
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That's amore!
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And of course we did the cheesy "Get one of me looking like I'm leaning on it" pics
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And Andy took pictures of other people setting up their own cheesy shots
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It was fun to visit, but also fun to come home. :)
More pics are on our flickr page.
