(no subject)
september 17:
ahHHHHH so my mom and i got up mega early (6 o'clock) after going to bed VERY LATE and we were a little jetlagged but what can u do! on our way out of the hotel i realized it was my birthday????
weird i'm old
anyway, we had our Viator tickets to go visit the Uffizi gallery at 9, so we had a quick breakfast in the hotel restaurant and walked down and got there early around 8:30 and guess what! just guess
there was a strike???? the lady who managed the Viator reservations called it a "worker's meeting" but it was the same thing and it was scheduled til 10:30 am. i was really thrown for a loop b/c i had the day ALL PLANNED OUT and then that happened. so my mom and i decided to do the second part of our day first -- go see the Duomo. we got our tickets really easy because it was so early (nothing in Florence happens before like 10 am) and we decided to walk up Giotto's bell tower (the Duomo bell tower)
it is 412 steps and extremely steep and narrow and claustrophobic and tiny but we mADE IT and holy god it was the most beautiful of views!!!! and the weather was so lovely
we walked back down eventually and it was just right on time to go pick up our Uffizi tickets. the Uffizi square was a shitshow from all the ppl waiting for hours for it to open, but eventually we found a group of people all waiting for the Viator lady and i had to call her but she found us and we got our tickets with relatively (???) little stress
the Uffizi! what can i say besides it's a lot of paintings. i got chills when i saw Bottacelli's Venus but after room and room and room and more room of "Madonna and ugly baby Jesus and ugly cherub" paintings i started getting antsy. i think we stayed til about 2:30? THAT'S A LOT OF ART THAT'S LIKE 5 HOURS OF ART
after that we went back to the Duomo to finish it up. the chapel was cool but underwhelming after the gorgeous outside and the other churches we've seen (and i'm getting very chapel-ed out) but the baptistry was incredible. we didn't want to climb the Cupola b/c it was anotehr 400 stairs and we'd kinda ///seen it/// u feel
then we were kinda tired but it wasn't time for dinner, so we decided to search for this little shop where they sell a bunch of touristy things and it took FOREVER and it was intensive but i found it (i'm kinda good at navigating ngl) and i bought some grappa for my dad. lmao i asked the shopkeeper what grappa is and he was like "it is grappa" thank u shopkeep
i think then we kinda wandered for a while???? we wandered into one church that was lovely but it seemed...very authentic and we are not roman catholic and i felt strange and intrusive being there so we left. we wandered back to the piazza del republico or s/t like that for dinner. lmao holy shit they have ur number if u are a tourist b/c there are about 4 restaurants lined up and they have people waiting outside each one to call you in
we went to one...it was okay? good food but nothing special. it was cool to sit ont he square and listen to the music. we got sangria and this fruit and honey combo, and then we chilled for a while and then got some chicken and kale (which was very good tbh) but it felt too touristy for me
i think then we decided to wander back to the bus stop
guess whta
the bus drivers were on strike. so we had to wait 45 minutes for a bus. incredible.
september 18:
got up early AGAIN and it would've been ok except my dear old grampa called at like 12:30 midnight bc he didn't know i was in florence oops
we had our BIG VESPA CHIANTI TOUR TODAY!!! we walked into town and found the meeting point without fuss (except it took us 20 minutes to find a bathroom) and our group was really cool! very nice people, about 10 of us? a few canadians, us, some aussies...i think that's it.
so we got in a bus and drove into Chianti to this cute little villa where the Vespas were
and let me tell you
Vespas are HARD
i'm laughing so hard even now my mom and i were like "ohhhhhh we've never driven Vespas but it's ok" no it was not ok we got on a vespa and immediately i was like no this will not work
and my mom gave it a good college try but then she fell off and got a huge goose egg on her leg and the vespa kept going almost off a cliff sooooo we were like um this won't work
but luckily it was still a BLAST! i was able to ride on the back of the tour guide's Vespa and he was a GREAT DRIVER and kinda cute and we went rly fast!!! and my mom rode in this little tuk tuk (open air) driven by the other tour guide, and mom and i switched periodically. so it was still incredibly fun. we stopped a few times (at a vineyard, at a little shop, at another vineyard where we saw the winemaking process) and then finally went back to the villa for lunch. one tour guide was italian and he was SO MUCH FUN he joked around a lot and was VERY CUTE like model cute???? and the other people in our group were just a blasty blast man it was fun
and of course the Chianti hillside absolutely took my breath away
but yeah my mom and i failed miserably at Vespa riding
then we got back into town and we tried to find some ponchos b/c it's supposed to rain so much in Cinque Terre but we couldn't so we bought trash bags but uhhhhh they look dumb and will not keep out the rain very well but hey we'll give it a go
then we tried to find the best gelato in Florence (Il Gelato) b/c we'd seen it the previous day but we COULD NOT FIND IT??? I SWEAR TO GOD THEY MOVED IT OR SOMETHING
we wandered for a half hour or so and eventually found it and thank jesus it was worth it
i got lemon and strawberry and peach. it tasted like...fruit. like the freshest fruit. it was incredible thank u Il Gelato
then we wandered on home and packed!!!! my mom laughed so hard she cried when i put on the garbage bag improvised poncho
gonna go to Cinque Terre tomorrow! hopefully the trip goes smooth, and hopefully in the next few days we get at least SOME periods of non-rain to hike!