Florence

 Yay our trip to Firenze (Florence in Italian) begins! This was my first train ride ever and I was so excited despite the fact that it was super early in the morning. It was a little more than an hour train ride from CF and it was really pretty scenery on the way there. This is Ty, my friend since first semester!

 When we first arrived in Florence, it was actually really cloudy and hazy and we were kind of sad because it had been so beautiful in CF for the past couple of days. We got of the train and went to get a cappuccino and then immediately took a bus to the other side of the river and up the hill to see the whole city from above! San Miniato was the first church that we went to which is where this picture is taken from. The church was beautiful. It was covered in Carrera and green marble and faced the heart of Florence from on top of the hill! 

 Amanda and I with the Duomo in the background! 

 The whole city, enhancing the color of the roof tops!

 This is an image of L'Arno river, it is on the south end of the city. The clouds started to clear and it became such a beautiful day!! I loved the reflection of the city on the water!

Our next church was Santa Croce and this is one of the chapels off of the church called the Pazzi Chapel. It was incredible, designed by Brunelleschi and had incredible proportion! On the inside, all of the columns matched up with the lines of the marble on the floor and the arches in the ceiling, kind of an architect's dream design. This was outside of the chapel. The coffers were so intricate and perfectly framed the entrance. The church of Santa Croce was under restoration and there was a lot of scaffolding in front of the altar but the church itself was pretty magnificent. Michelangelo and Galileo are buried here. I really loved this church!

 This is Palazzo Vecchio which has one of the only outdoor public art squares. There were tons of sculptures and people everywhere. It also seemed as though the streets dumped into the Palazzo causing people to swarm in the square. I loved the energy!

 This is where we stopped for lunch! It was so good. I am running out of adjectives to describe this incredible place. haha. Paolo knows the owner so it was fun to be there and be welcomed by this little Italian man who loved having all of us!

 The first time I had tortellini in Italy. SO GOOD!

 Finally after lunch and a little shopping around we arrived at the Duomo! I have a picture of me in front of it but it is really, really unattractive so this is the generic one. The scale of this building was COMPLETELY overwhelming. And the detail was beyond imagination. The front of the church has been restored within the past couple of years and the marble basically sparkled. This image does NOT do it justice at all. It was probably the most magnificent thing I have ever seen. We kind of stumbled upon the church out of one of the many narrow streets of Florence and felt a wave of awe. It almost took your breathe away. It sounds so cliche but this church was so inspiring. 

 The actual dome. We had seen the dome popping up all over the city as we were walking through the streets and once I finally saw it, I truly couldn't believe it!

This was the last church that we went to, right before we left. We almost missed our train but  we ran by on the way back. It is the Santa Maria Novella designed by Alberti. The piazza was in front of church was filled with people hanging out on the beautiful green grass and it made me want to come back to Florence really soon. 
I loved Florence so much. The city had so much energy and so much beauty. It was almost opposite to CF because of the scale and grandeur but I loved it equally. Seriously, could life get better??