Belgium Birdie: Florence (Italy Spring Break)

[Saturday March 5^th – Monday March 7^th]

The three of us packed up our backpacks and were at the train station early Saturday morning in order to catch our first train of the week. It was a three hour train and we slept most of the way which was convenient because all three of us had seats in separate cabins. I was especially excited to arrive in Florence because we were staying with Tara, one of my sorority sisters, that is studying abroad in Florence. She met us at the train station and it was so much fun to see a Clemson friend in Europe! Tara lives in an adorable apartment with four other girls and loves studying in Italy. It was really nice to be able to stay in an apartment instead of having to worry about locking up our belongings in hostels. After meeting her roommates she walked us around the city and we realized that it Florence is actually quite small. It is beautiful though and we had a sunny day to enjoy the surroundings. She took us to her favorite pizza place for lunch and we all enjoyed our margarita pizzas that came straight from the oven. Afterwards we accomplished our “touristy” deed of the day and toured the Pitti Palace. It is a vast palace that was the home of the Medici family during the height of their rule. It now contains an immense amount of artwork and other luxury possessions of the Medici family that were remarkable to see in person. After walking through most of the palace we took the rest of the day to explore more of Florence. This included a large amount of time in the leather market which is HUGE! There were covered stands as far as the eye could see down this one road and they sold every type of leather product you could imagine. It was really entertaining to just meander through all the stands and look at the items up for sale. We finished our night by going to one of Tara’s favorite pasta restaurants for dinner and all greatly enjoyed our meals :)

Sunday morning we woke up to another sunny day! Our main goal for the morning was to walk to Piazza Michelangelo because it is known to have the best panoramic view of Florence. We began the journey to the overlook by walking up many, many steps. We were all about to break a sweat when we finally reached the top and the view was definitely worth it! The city is magnificent and we obviously took the opportunity to take some pictures. After walking back down the stairs we went to the Duomo which is the famous church in the center of Florence. It is one of the biggest churches in Italy and has spectacular decorations on the outside of the building. My friend Tyler was in Florence a couple years ago on vacation and explicitly told me about this one calzone place that he loved so we made it our mission to find it for lunch on Sunday. Luckily he gave us great directions and it was a phenomenal suggestion because it was the most delicious calzone I have ever had. They were absolutely massive though and all of our jaws dropped when they brought them out. With our bellies more than full we made a pit stop one more time at the leather market in order to buy face masks because we were taking a day trip to another city that was celebrating “Carnevale”! My next post will describe our trip to Viareggio.

Florence was such a cute city and Tara was the best host! It was really exciting to be able to see another Clemson friend abroad. We were able to share the similarities and differences of our study abroad experiences and loved going to all of her favorite local places.