Florence is an interesting city; although grandiose in scale and filled, at least during the day, with an incredibly large and riotous press of tourists it still managed to feel both open and quaint in the same breath. Something about many of the large thoroughfares being closed to traffic combined with the wonderful architecture and the proclivity of the residents to wander in small groups late into the evening produced a very different character in the city versus anything I've experienced back home.
Unfortunately, a great number of those wandering residents were in fact drunken year-abroad Americans and most of the shops near the artistic attractions were overpriced tourist traps, but there is only so much one can ask from any given European metropolis. It occurred to me many times during our walking tours that it must be very similar to seeing SF for the first time - an original thought, I know - with the exception that everything in Florence is so damned old.
Highlights included climbing the cramped and byzantine interior staircase to the top of the Duomo church, of which I took a sufficiently touristy number of pictures, and dinner at a small restaurant away from the tourist center recommended by a random guy on the street corner after we found our original destination closed. One of the best group dinners I've ever had, and done simply by asking the waiter to "feed us".
We left Florence today for a long and many legged journey across France to arrive in Paris tomorrow morning. As I write this, Morgan sits across from me on the train farming zombies on her phone, the rest of the family occupied with various other typical time passing activities. My mom is actually writing in a paper journal. How 20th century of her. I finally finished the miRNA review I brought, which was actually really exciting but to such a limited audience that I fear I've already written too much. I'll put up word of Paris as soon as I'm able.
Ciao (goddammit).
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