Day 4 - Our Florentine Mama

Day 4 for me started with a HOT shower. Just what the Dr. ordered for my little frigid body. After that, and a tasty tasty breakfast at our hotel and classical music playing softly in the background, I was feeling re juvenated and ready to start my day. I had had a change of attitude and I just decided I wasn't going to let the weather ruin my trip. Was it still cold and awful? Yes. But did I let it bother me as much? No. 

This was the best breakfast we had the entire trip.

Venice was still really cold, but at least it wasn't raining so that was a plus for us. We got up pretty early and got to see some of the greatest sights in Venice without many other people there. That was sure nice. We went a little picture crazy, but it was just so much fun to "wake up" with the city. Everything was starting to come to life as we were wandering around.

Rialto Bridge. Look at the amount of people on the bridge now...

as opposed to just a few hours later. This is why we got up early every single day.

On the bridge

Venice was so pretty

All of my gondolas were still covered up. We saw tons and tons of gondoliers throwing water out of their boats with buckets. 

The Doge's Palace

We loved this! This was the garbage man driving the garbage boat. Venice is so cool.

The Bridge of Sighs. This bridge connected the doge's palace to the prison, and it is called the Bridge of Sighs because they said that as convicts passed through the bridge they would see the last view of daylight that they'd ever see and they would always give a mournful sigh. 

3 cheers to a better day! At the entrance to St. Mark's Square.

The Doge's Palace

Isn't he the cutest thing??

The square's bell tower. If we would have had more time in Venice, we would have climbed to the top of the tower to see a view of the city.

St. Mark's Basilica. It was much prettier in the daylight.

So, St. Mark's square was COVERED in pigeons. They kept flying at people and landing on their arms and heads and stuff. It was kind of unreal, a little bit. I thought it would be fun to chase them and watch them all fly away. Surprisingly, they didn't fly away too much. It's like they didn't even care. They must be totally accustomed to people by now.

One of the many, many little in-between streets that were lined with bridges. They were all over the town.

St. Mark's Square was literally flooding. You can see how much standing water there was. That's why the city put up those little walkway things. Crazy!

 The entrance to the Doge's Palace

Dave thought these little guys were so strange!

Taking in Venice

An outside view of our hotel

After exploring the city in the daylight for awhile and taking what felt like a zillion pictures, we took our little vaporetto boat to the Frari Church, which has some of the best art in Venice still exactly where it was intended to be - in the church for worshipers. The church was absolutely freezing cold, but it sure was cool inside. 

Just outside the Frari Church.

We weren't allowed to take any pictures, so again, I had to find some dumb ones off the internet. I think I'm resigned the fact that none of them (not even our own pictures) will do the real things justice, but here you go anyway.

This is Donatello's John the Baptist. I love Donatello's works because they are all almost horrifyingly realistic. Here is John the Baptist after he has survived in the desert eating honeycomb and locusts. Way cool to see this in real life.

This is the altar-piece of the church - The Assumption of the Virgin by Titian. He was one of the biggies in the Venetian Renaissance, and it was cool to see this larger than life painting. 

In the church there was also a monument for Canova, a Venetian-born sculptor. Although his actual body is buried somewhere else, his heart is inside a bowl inside the little monument. His heart. Sick.

After seeing the church (and listening to a Rick Steves audio tour of the place), we headed back to our hotel, grabbed our bags and headed to the train station so we could catch our train to Florence.

See you later Venice! Next time we see you, it will be at least 45 degrees warmer. :)

We got settled into our train for the next few hours it would take us to get to Florence (my most highly anticipated stop). For some reason, when we bought our train tickets (probably because we had NO clue what we were doing), they assigned us seats that weren't by each other at all - they were actually in completely different cars. So...we just sat down in one of the seats that was our ticket and the other one by it that was empty and prayed that no one would get on the train who needed that spot. Every single time we made a stop we got nervous that we'd have to move, but we got lucky and never had to. 

When we pulled in to Florence's train station, guess what the weather was?

Yep.

Rainy.

Again.

But I made a deal with myself right?? I still had to remind myself every once in awhile.

Our first stop in Florence was at the church of Santa Maria Novella, right off the train station. We headed over there with our backpacks and all to look at it. And boy, was it beautiful. I was excited to see it for a few reasons. One of the reasons was that it was the first church that ever employed Michelangelo, and they hired him as a teenager. It was amazing to walk through the church and think that Michelangelo had once walked through the same church when he was just a kid. 

This part of the church is from the 1200's. It was the crypt where lots of monks were buried. Slightly creepy? Yes. But cool at the same time? Yes!

This was the other reason I was so excited to see this church. This is Masaccio's painting, The Holy Trinity. This painting was influential to the Renaissance because it offered so much perspective, with the arched ceiling and vanishing point. Masaccio did what not many painters had done before him, which in turn, inspired other painters like Michelangelo and Raphael.

Isn't this church pretty? I loved the striped arches on the ceiling.

After taking in all the sights of Santa Maria Novella, we headed to our little bed and breakfast. It was called Casa Rabatti, and was run by a little Florentine grandma. She was darling. Darling. Her name was Marcella, and she was wearing a little moo-moo and house slippers as she greeted us at the door. She took our hands in hers and tried to warm them up while apologizing for the cold, awful weather. Oh, and she only spoke about 5% English words, so you can imagine how darling it was to have a little Florentine lady in slippers taking our hands and trying to take care of us. She was the cutest, most hospitable woman I've ever met in my life. I knew from the second we walked into the door that this was going to be my favorite place that we stayed. And it definitely was. We had a huge room all to ourselves, and even a little extension of the kitchen. We got to eat our breakfast at the little table in our room and had lots of space to spread out (which isn't very common in Europe). We had to share a bathroom with some of her other guests, which was kind of a bummer, but not even significant enough to bother us. She had the funniest little English phrases she would say to us, and would always repeat the saying at least 3 times. Here are some of our favorites from her.

• She had a hair dryer in the room for me to use, but I couldn't figure out how to work it. We took it out to her and she tried it out, then just kept saying, "Broken. Broken! Broken. No work. Broken."
• We asked her if her place was usually full, and she said that she sees lots of Americans and Australians, but "not so much Cheena. Cheena....not so much."
• One time as we were leaving, Dave forgot the key and had to walk back to our room to get it. She said in Italian (which Dave could kind of understand because he speaks Spanish and they are kind of similar) that he just forgot the key because he was so in love. How cute!!
• As we were getting settled for one of our nights there, she told us that she was going on a "walkie walkie walkie" to church. Her motions for walkie walkie walkie were hilarious.
• As we were saying goodbye and heading to the Cinque Terre, we were telling her how we could come back and stay with her next time we were in Florence (which we definitely will). She said that next time we needed to come with "bambino. No! Bambini! (holding 4 fingers up) Well...no four. Poor Mama! (then she changed to only 2 fingers). Better. Much better for Mama."

After dropping off our bags, we headed out to the Academia, where Michelangelo's David is. There are a few other things at the museum, like Michelangelo's Prisoners, and a few old old old pianos, but that's about it. It was really close to our Casa Rabatti, and we made it there just in time for our reservation. Of course, we couldn't take any pictures, so here are a few from the internet.

This was by far the most stunning piece of art I saw. Without a doubt. I think we sat and looked at it for almost an hour. Just looking. Seeing it in real life was absolutely incredible. It's one of my favorite memories of the trip. This David is the ultimate Renaissance sculpture. Michelangelo painted David as he is sizing up Goliath, and it's almost as if he's saying, "I can take this guy." His right hand is bigger, noting that the strength of God was with David. I also learned that other sculptors rejected this piece of marble saying it was too flawed, too tall, and too shallow to be of any use. But Michelangelo didn't think so. He took it and carved what is arguably one of the most famous pieces of art in the world. He was amazing to look at.

These guys were pretty cool too. They lined the hallway leading up to the David and they really showcase Michelangelo's style of carving. He believed that the sculpture was "hidden" inside the stone and that it was his job to "set it free". He didn't finish any of the "prisoners" lining the hallway, and it was really cool to see them all half-finished.

After the Academia, we found a grocery store to buy breakfast for our mornings in Florence and a laundromat to wash our clothes in since we had to pack extremely lightly. We found a laundromat pretty close to Casa Rabatti, but it only took exact change in Euros, which we didn't have. Dave ran back and forth from little shops 3 different times to buy little treats to get the change that we needed for the machines. It was kind of frustrating, and then the machine ate our money, so Dave had to run to the store again. Just shortly after, another couple walked in to the laundromat, and we started chatting with them. We found out they were from Canada and were here on a 3 week vacation (LUCKY!). They ended up giving us some fabric softener, and some money for the machine so Dave didn't have to go to the store yet again. They were so nice, and were so helpful to us. We'll always remember how kind they were.

After our laundry was all done, we ate dinner at a place called Tratorria Garga, a favorite place of Marcella's. It was kind of pricy, and pretty fancy, and we felt kind of out of place. Especially since we didn't order any wine (they thought we were SO strange) and ordered no appetizer and no 2nd entree. Just a first course and dessert. The first course was really small, and we were kind of hungry that night. Luckily we had some snacks from the grocery store and some protein bars that we brought with us, and we were fine until the next morning. 

Our gelato flavors for the day: Mint, Vanilla, and Strawberry.

We slept SO well in our cozy little room at Casa Rabatti. I was finally warm, I had a cozy bed, and my shoes were by the heater drying out for a big day of walking the next day.

Stay tuned for Day 5!!