A short trip to Florence

On March 22, Captain America and I took the train from Zurich to Florence. We figured this would be a good spot to spend the night on our way to Rome. Because the state museums and monuments are closed on Monday, we didn't take the first train out of Zurich.

We stayed in the delightful Hotel Scoti. It is run by quite possibly the friendliest woman I have ever met, Doreen. Our room had a quaint view of the back streets of Florence, was ideally located near the train station (although Florence is small, so possibly all hotels are located near the train station). Doreen gave us excellent suggestions on where to eat dinner, and get gelato! She was also in no hurry to check us out the next day, telling us to go out in morning and enjoy the day, and we could "settle up" when we returned.

As everything was closed that first evening, we settled for wandering around Florence. We went to the Ponte Vecchio and laughed as we saw the watches and scarves for sale (we didn't buy watches in Switzerland; we didn't buy scarves in Egypt). We had dinner at Doreen's suggestion, Trattoria Marione, also listed in our Lonely Planet.

The next morning, we got up bright and early, had breakfast at Caffe Pasticceria Donnini in the Piazza della Repubblica, and headed over to the Galleria dell'Accademia to see the David. It was a pretty amazing piece, although I have to say, after I heard our friends rave about it, I really expected something bigger. (This would be a good spot to insert the classic joke, that's what she said, as David is not proportional. Apparently it was considered in poor artistic form at the time to create proportional male anatomy, so thus David, perhaps the most famous statue of all time, is forced to continuously endure gawkers commenting on his smallish penis.)

After David, we went to the Piazza Duomo. Entering the church is free, but we also decided to climb to the top of the dome. It's actually two concentric domes, and you climb between them. (We opted not to do this at St. Peter's because after this experience, Captain America had his fill of being crammed into tiny places with unwashed Europeans, and really, I can't blame him. I'm sure the view from St. Peter's is spectacular, but I agreed: being stuck between two rock walls with throngs of people once on our trip was enough.)

(This is looking up the dome.)

Next on our list: the Uffizi. Unfortunately, the lines were really long (to be expected), and we had a train to catch in a few hours; we unfortunately had to skip this one. We didn't want to stand in line for an hour only to have to rush through the museum. I'm not sure I know how to rush through a museum.

Captain America took over as tour guide, and took me to a number of lovely squares, as well as to the Basilica di Santa Croce, which houses the tombs of Michelangelo, Dante, and Galileo, among others.