Day 9-12: Florence and Siena Day

FLORENCE WAS FUN. But I didnt quite understand the hype. We arrived to Florence, tired as all get out because we walked everywhere and had a hard time with bus stops here for some reason. Once we got to our correct bus stop it was another 20 minutes to walk to our actual place. But when we got there it was quite nice! Our host was SOO kind to us. He gave us a ginormous map of the town and recommended some places to eat and see. He was kinda like a sweet grandpa. But we later found out he was NOT quite that. We definitely met his lady friend and died laughing. But thats besides the point. I remember being kinda cranky and hot this day, but got some beautiful pics before the sun went down.

Fake, but cool statues. They're replicas of the real things, but even doing a replica takes some serious skill. I was impressed. This is located at Piazza della Signorio.

Coolest bridge made out of shops. The Ponte Vecchio. 

Up close n personal

Walking through

Chalk arteeeests of Florence

After a long HOT HOT HOT day. Waiting for the bus. Steven aint thrilled.

THIS. WAS. THE. LINE. FOR. MICHAELANGELO'S DAVID. I understand. It's David. But omg. We waited in this line for about an hour and moved maybe 10 feet. Because this took up so much time, we finally decided to buy the more expensive passes to get in right away. Couldn't afford any more lost time!

Kewl.

And a lil nakedness for you. But it was beautiful! Honestly amazing in person. I think we stood there for like 30 mins just staring and taking pics of every angle. If you get up close you can see a little chunk of his toe is missing because an angry(?????) tourist threw something at the statue. Yikes. Talk about dangerous. That should be punishable for years in prison. Ok idk about that.

Some pretty architecture.

I honestly cant remember the name of this church. But I remember we walked a good way to get to it and we had to sit in the shade because we were blistering hot. So I took a few pics.

Stairs to the Pizzale Michaelangelo. Seriously this day couldnt be any hotter. We walked from the Ponte Vecchio to here and that was like a 30 min walk in jean type pants. I was regretting my choice of fashion that day.

And once we got to the top. GORG.

Sleepy steven. We took a rest. And then the next day we woke up bright and early to see Siena! Suggestion of Mike Knapp.

My face looks tired.

Stevens face looks tired.

The never ending escalators to get to the entrance of Siena!!! Like coolest thing. We were running up these escalators because there must have been 10 different sets. It was hilarious.

The entrance.

Steve's cool trick I just had to capture. Note his accomplished (adorable) looking face.

VESPAS. PPL CANT GET ENOUGH OF THESE THINGS. We were wishing we had one.

Largest Piazza in all the lands (Piazza Del Campo) we read from Rick Steve's guide. Apparently they have horse races around the town. We missed it by a few days :(

Gorg. It was Sunday so they were closed for worship services.

VIEWWWWW

Stevens handiwork. YIKES.

Delish nutella pizza we had on the train ride back to Florence.

We Smilez. We love life. I love us. I love travels.

Next time: Pisa, Cinque Terre, and Naples. ALL IN ONE POST SO DONT MISS IT!

Day 8-9: Venice!

We finally arrived to BEEEYOOOTIFUL Venice. By the way, we are getting from place to place via train. With things being relatively close, this is doable. They are typically a few hours away from each other and it's kinda cool to ride the train. I just read book after book and I'm lovin it. Anyway. We get to Venice and it's a big flurry of people running place to place. This is the first place where we really felt like a tourist only because there were SO many people running around and running into me and not knowing where they were going. And they looked American for the most part. But, the point is that we get there and its depressing because ITS RAINING. So much rain it's hard to understand. I was wearing shorts, flip flops, and a t-shirt and was soaking wet in 30 seconds walking out to the vaporetti (the boat that gets you place to place). We bought a 48 hour pass that gave us as many rides as we wanted. It was steep, but definitely the best way to get around for us. We just scan our little card and didn't have to worry about paying $7 PER RIDE PER PERSON. Crazy rates.

So, we ride the vaporetti which is extremely crowded almost everytime we get on it and its hard to take pictures. We walk around these small crazy streets and Steven is able to flawlessly navigate them by some great miracle. We find our place/host and its down a very sketchy narrow street. We walk up the steps and our airbnb room is actually very nice! Again, no air conditioning because we didn't think through that. But it was fine because we had a fan and it was probably the best night of sleep we got in a whole week. Once the rain let up a bit, we went out to explore and here is what we found. St Marks Square...

Where all the gondola's dock up

Reading our Rick Steve's guide

SOOO  much rain

Riding the vaporetti and doing our audio tour of the town with water streets

So gorgeous

 This was the tower we went up. I think one of the two things we actually paid to do in Venice. There was a super long line to go up and tensions were high. Some old man, we are talking 70 years old, walked to the front of the line hoping to get in before everyone else (yes...he was cutting). But a man, 40 years his younger, started screaming and telling everyone in line that the 70 year old man was trying to skip the line. I wanted to cry because what does it matter? He is OLD. hahaha. I love old people more than life.

St Mark's Basilica was under extreme construction :( so this was the best picture we got of it. Normally it's so gorgeous and we could tell that even though it was covered. 

 All smiles at the square

This was about as close as we were willing to get to the pigeons. Talk about nightmares. 

The view from the top of the tower!

 My heart <3

On the second day we headed to Murano which is where they do all the glass blowing demonstrations. We got a sneak peak of some in the back alleys, but weren't willing to pay 50 euros to do it full on. We got to walk around the shops and look at how pretty the streets were. 

But I broke my sandal about 30 minutes being there and we were pretty limited cause of how hard it was to walk. Hahahaha. So we stopped into a grocery store there and picked up our go-to lunch. A baguette, meat, and some fruit. We sat on the sidewalk and took some pictures and enjoyed our time.

I mean look at how colorful!

When we got back we decided to do some laundry. But the place didn't have a dryer so we had to hang it in our room. It was a failure because there were so many stinkin mosquito's when we opened the window. 

So the cool thing about Airbnb, is that you meet people from other countries if you share a place. And we got to meet some beautiful Australians. They told us all about their fortunate lives ($20 minimum wage or something ridiculous like that) which is how they get to travel. We met them towards the end of their trip which was like 3 months. Crazy. Anyway, we went out to dinner with them and got the cheapest but most delicious pizza. On our way back we split up and walked the night streets which were gorgeous. Buuut this picture below shows the barrier we had getting home. The entire Marks square was flooded! It was nuts. Everyone was walking in knee deep water. We decided to take a different route. Sorry for the blurry pictures.

 Accademia we paid $20 per person for. It was not worth it unfortunately.

One of our meals. The noodles were disgusting. But we saved a buttload of money.

Me taking pics of my domestic husband. He's whipped.

Im sure I missed some stories here or there. But this place was great. MY FAVORITE Italy place ever. The whole place is just amazing. The streets are tiny and there are so many cool shops. People didn't really try to hassle us to get us into their shops which was a nice change of pace. I heart Venice! Oh--and no we didn't do a gondola ride. Not worth the price for us personally. I know many people love it and enjoy it. But what are we? Rich?!

Next stop:  Florence & Siena