D7&8 Florence with renaissance

12/19, 20 Sunny all day with snow on the ground
Florence

Florence was the origin city of Renaissance back in the 14th century, so it has many artistic treasures and pretigious museums. In mandarin, there was a famous Chinese writer translated the name of this city as Emerald, just like a jew stone on the European map.

We arrived this city in the middle of the night, after a short break at the train station, we tried to approach our hostel in the city center. While we walked alone the road, we found beside covered with heavy snow, the city was in extreme silence and the Christmas tree shined in the dark night, like a lighthouse for the lost ones. It was elegant and breathtaken.

The first morning, we went to the most beautiful in the world, Venus. Galleria degli Uffizi presented the world-famous painting “the birth of Venus” by Botticelli. The peaceful, satisfactory expression of Venus was impressive, I looked at her for almost 10 minutes and she’s still natural and elegant.

Venus on the cover of books (See David on the left)

After the cultural experience, we went to the old bridge to see the river view of Florence. There are many jewelry shops on the bridge but I didn’t see many people inside the shop buying things.

the cloud made the tower looked like chimney

Then we turned to the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, the facade of this cathedral like a fairy tale. This cathedral was one of the most important icon of Florence city. Not only because of the building itself, but the mural of the final judgement.

Facade of Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore

We also had a delicious Tuscany lunch at one restaurant recommended by local people. There are quite a lof of differences between French and Italien restaurant, for example, in Italy they don’t serve cold entree but hot first dishes like stew rice or pasta; and the amount of food is much more than France. The servants are also different, in Italy, the servants are more friendly and sometimes flirt with female customers are allowed, you will never see that happened in France.

  Country style decoration

My main dish: boiled beef with chilly & onion

The first day was finished after the lunch, we were too full and too lazy to walk, so that we went back to hostel and enjoy tje sweet heater and nice dinner served by the hostel.

Girls asked local police to take photos

Jupiter in the night

Famous bronze hog

The second day morning was non-cultural activities, we went to the leather market for shopping and beef-stomach sandwich, then heading for Gucci outlet for bargains.

Yummy beef stomach sandwich

The Italiens were friendly to us, but we’ve heard that they don’t like Chinese people since there are so many Chinese smuggling into Italy for immagrants and they worked kick ass hard and took many job opportunities. Besides some of the Chinese people often did imappropriate behaviors when they’re abroad. So that the misundersanding between Italien and Chinese were more deeper.

Bumped into Alison in the train station

After the crazy outlet shopping (I bought a pair of shoes in TOD’S for 85E), we planed to take the train to Venice, and inccidentally we met Alison at the train station. It’s glad that we met old friends together without any appointment.

I lost my favorit knit hat in the station of Venice, so sad.