July 7th -A View Makes an Entire Trip Worth It

To start the day off we continued on another walking tour that included the Uffizi Gallery and Academia. Although I was really tired throughout the entire thing, we were able to see the David and many Botticelli paintings. The David is awesome to see in real life, it so monumental. I have never seen pictures from all sides, so it was great to walk around the structure. An interesting fact I learned was that Michelangelo had a 40 ton slab of marble for David and sculpted it down to 7 tons. It amazing how they can make a sculpture out of a block of nothing, every move they make has to be correct so they don’t mess it up. I was excited to the Botticelli painting called the Birth of Venus where she is on a conch shell being born from the ocean. I like the people on the side how they are flying and have flowers around them because that means they are in love. It was interesting to see these things because never in my life would I think I would be able to.

After the tour ended, we went on a group outing to look at the Santa Maria del Fiore and the baptistery doors. There are three sets of doors on this cathedral the one that stands out the most is definitely the ones in gold. Inside the ceiling is filled with golden mosaics, similar to the Borghese museum but with much more color. The Santa Maria del Fiore was so colorful with red and green painting on the outside, I have always thought that it was just gray. So it is interesting to see how different it is from a picture to actually seeing it in real life. The outing continued to us walking for a group sketching activity. We first sketched the Pontevecchio bridge and then broke off into smaller groups for other sketches. The bridge is also it has houses located on it with different venders all around it is stretched across the Arno River which when I looked over has too much moss for my liking ha.After sketching was done which is not my forte, we were able to hike to church where you can see all of Florence. The church also included some great chanting from a few monks. The view was beautiful despite the fact we had to hike up inclined street as well as so many stairs! I was out of breath by the time I got there, but the view was absolutely amazing. It was cool to see the Duomo rise above the city. I could also see the lavish villas that were in the hills which is what you picture when you think of Italy.Overall it was a very tiring but great day. I was very glad I got to see Florence from a different view and I would hike up those stairs any day along with a nicely filled water bottle. The smoothie I had today was a great added bonus as well. I guess I have learned to appreciate American food and I will say that with pride. Who doesn't want pasta in Italy? Apparently me and my pickyness.