Florence

Our first trip out of town was to visit friends who are having their second stay in Florence as part of a study abroad program (someone needs to be there to teach the approximately 7000 U.S. students who are there each year). Having hosts who can navigate the town and the language was a treat, but it was still overwhelming. I can't remember seeing so many amazing works of art in one place, which is probably why there were so many tourists in one place!

I wrote almost a whole post, but it seemed like it could have been written by anyone who had visited. The pictures were nice but nothing unique.  I think I won't finish that post and instead just write about a few random things.  I strongly encourage you to poke around the web and find more awesome pictures, essays about art, and details about history of the area.

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Climbing to the top of Giotti's Bell Tower was worth the challenge.
Here you can see the carvings representing the guilds on the lowest level,
the representations of planets on the next level, and saints above that.

The Grand Museum of the Duomo has the original works, which were great to see close up,

but a whole room of them is a lot to absorb.  We tried.

On the first day we also visited the Baptistry of San Giovanni, rebuilt where one had been in the 4th or 5th century.  The doors are