Ciao. Week one is officially in the books. It has already been such a crazy, jam packed, amazing experience in Italy, it is hard to believe that is has only been one week here. In the first week of arrival, the only thing on the agenda from my school (which is Lorenzo de Medici), was one hour orientations, leaving the rest of the day available for exploration of the city! In Florence, the public transportation is really good for getting around, but once you are in the middle of the city, the easiest way of getting around is on foot. Over our first 7 days, we did a lot of walking throughout the city in search of the main tourist attractions of the city as well as to find new delicious restaurants to try. On an average day we were taking anywhere from 12k to 18k steps, or about 5 to 7 miles!
One of the first thing that you notice in Florence is that there is amazing views everywhere! Just walking through the city, you will see plenty of beautiful buildings and structures that are unlike I have ever seen in Hawaii. And not only are the building aesthetically amazing, they are also gigantic, even more so noticeably when you are able to go inside!
On the streets there is also lots of artwork open to the public. All of the pictures below were not hidden in a gallery or required to pay to view, but simply integrated into the city within the streets!
Although the art found on the streets is quite amazing, this first week we were in Florence also happened to be the first Sunday of the month. Luckily for us, on the first Sunday of every month, the state museums are free to the public to enter, and so we were also able to visit a few museums to see stunning pieces of art of all kinds! There is so much art to see that it was honestly a little overwhelming and tiring spending the four hours straight that we did in only two museums, but it was still a very interesting thing to experience. The two museums we went to were the Riccardi Medici Palace, where we got to explore the palace that the Medici's (one of the past major political influences of the city) used to live in, and the Uffizi Gallery, which was a gigantic, multi-level museum consisting of over 100 large rooms filled with art. Personally, I enjoyed the Medici Palace the most because it had this amazing fresco covering the entire ceiling of a room, and the walls were also filled with amazing details and patterns (the top right picture).
Aside from the sightseeing, we were also able to eat lots of great foods! I forgot to take pictures of some of the great meals or pastries that we got along the way, but we have been able to stop into any restaurant that we see and get great food. Not to mention, in Italy there is no sales tax as well as a no tipping culture, which means that eating out can be done pretty cheaply! I am excited to see what other great foods I will be able to try in the weeks to come. I might also have to try the tripe sandwich that is commonly enjoyed here in Florence.
This is only week one, there is so much more to come. Catch you in the next one!
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