Florence and Pisa

This weekend my roomie Christina and I went to Florence to stay with my Aunt Therese and Uncle Gabriele. The train ride was only about an hour and a half and was actually really nice. When we arrived we all had lunch and then did some sightseeing. A bunch of other people from our study abroad program came to Florence this weekend also and we kept running into them. Florence is so cute and small, all the main sights are only a few minutes from each other. It is much easier to take a stroll in Florence then Rome because there are less cars, and more areas that cars can't drive. The city doesn't feel as old as Rome though, you don't run into ancient ruins, which is one of the things that amazes me most about Rome. It was very cold and windy the first day so walking around wasn't the greatest.



On Saturday Christina and I went to Pisa, which is about an hour away on the slower trains. Some of the guys that live in our building met up with us and ended up being on our same train! Pisa is very small, you don't even need a whole day to see the main sights. The weather couldn't have been better for January, it was cool but the sky was so blue and there were no clouds (which makes for amazing pictures!) We had a lot of fun playing tourist and taking pictures holding up and knocking over the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We went back to Florence that evening to have dinner with Therese and Gabriele and to relax.

Sunday morning we had some sightseeing left to do, we went to the Uffizi where some of the most famous Renaissance art is displayed and the Duomo (a cathedral). Overall it was a great weekend, it was really nice to have home cooked meals and to be with family (even though this was really my first time to get to know them). I really liked Florence, I definitely need to go back and see other parts of Tuscany, but I think I would prefer to live in Rome. There is still so much to do and explore and I've been here over 3 weeks! I like living in a big city because there is always something exciting going on but there are also quieter areas to get away from it all.