Rome via Brooklyn

606 words, 3 minutes read time.

Dakota and I made our way to Florence Saturday morning! “The capital of Tuscany, Florence is famous for its architectural and artistic treasures, dating from its heyday as the leading architectural city of the Italian Renaissance under the Medici(culture smart 24).” It was a little stressful because we didn’t do much planning but I had faith we would figure it out. The bus to the train ended up being de-routed because of a Vespa parade, and I wondered whether there is a parade of some sort happening here every Saturday. We had to take a 50 euro uber to the train to make it, but it was worth it. I expected the train station to be more confusing than it actually was but I liked how it was one giant open space, and all the lines were labeled and constantly updating on the screens. There were also a lot of food options and Dakota was very pleased that there was a McDonald’s. We arrived in Florence after 2 hours and went straight to Santa Maria del Fiore.

We weren’t sure where we should go next and ended up spending a little time in the Da Vinci museum. Though it was more of a children’s museum, it was cool to interact with all his inventions.

We waited in line for the Uffizi gallery for a bit but it was worth it because we saw many iconic art pieces.

Walking around, we heard a bunch of music and started walking in that direction. We ended up stumbling upon another event. It was so cool walking through Florence with everyone celebrating and supporting a good cause.

On the way home I got a really good panini in the train station and it was a great way to say goodbye to Florence.

There was a bus strike when we got back to Rome but decided to improvise our way. We took 2 different buses. Though they were not the ones we were supposed to take, they had similar enough routes. Knowing where it would be realistic to walk back from was nice because I realized that I was getting much more familiar with the area.
The next morning we went to Porta Portuense, the flea market right near us. It had so many booths and we found some cool things. It was really hot though but just another day I was so grateful for the water fountains. I noticed that the water fountains in Florence were different and made you press a metal thing into it to cause it to flow. I tried to find sources about this but couldn’t find any, but it is probably because they are older or need to conserve water.