It's a Long One - BUT IT'S AWESOME! :)

After the past two days I can say for sure I have never seen anything cooler then I've seen in the past two days!  WOW.  What an amazing place.  I loved the places we we've been so far, but Florence has been mind blowing.

BUT I have to back up a bit! 

We left Vernazza and headed to Florence, but we took a pit stop to see the "Leaning Tower of Pisa".  It was awesome!

This is for free -- these signs are everywhere.  If you go beyond the yellow line, this sign says with pictures and words, your left leg will become shorter.

 

 

 

This pictures shows the three buildings -- the tower is at the end of the row.

 

Look at the heads in this building!  Isn't it amazing?  I love all the detail work!

 

 

Pictures like this are SOOOO funny to me!

 

Ha ha!

 

 

Hola from Pisa!

 

 

We got on the bus to head back to the train station from Pisa and someone got pick-pocketted (sp?) on the way in the train.  They caught the person doing it tho.  So, we all talked about that the entire way back to the train station. It wasn't funny, but in retrospect it was funny.  It was a young Indian couple that it happened to and there was an middle-age Indian couple we had been talking to that were hilarious.  When the middle-age Indian lady found out what had happened, she started yelling for the younger Indian lady to go after the woman that had tried to pick-pocket them.  lol.  It got a little ruckus.  Anywho!

 

SOOOOOO... from there we were back on a train!  I have read a book and some and done several cross word puzzles.  If you want to know a car made in Germany that is 4 letters -- it's not Audi, it's "Opel".  Which is weird... cause I saw one on the street for the first time today.  :) 

 

We got into Florence -- wowza... we grabbed some Chinese  :)  (Hallelujah!) and then wandered around until about 11:30pm and then started the journey home.  And then it started raining... and then we got lost.  It was NO fun -- but it will be a memory for sure!!  I took some pictures, but we went back to the same places today and into the actual museums, so I'll just start w/ those instead.

 

 

The Duomo!  AMAZING!  It's AMAZING!  When you turn the corner and see this thing... can I tell you... it's AMAZING.  Crazy.  It's beautiful, interesting, fascinating and oddly, it was also sad to me.  Churches like this were sort of built for the glory of God... but I question how much honor he receives from these buildings.  He was born in a manger, but we insist he needs a palace.  Just a thought.  :)

 

 

We saw the David today -- couldn't take pictures, but it was AWESOME!  It was super cool -- all the years of seeing it in art classes and this and that -- today I just realized he has the stone in his hand he's going to kill Goliath with and the strap from his sling is wrapped around his back -- that was an awesome discovery.  You can also see the veins in his hands and arms!  Crazy.

 

Look -- this stuff is just laying around out in the open!

 

 

Replica of David

 

Poseidon -- again... just laying around out side.  This entire square was amazing.  Tons of sculptures outside in the square. 

 

Nick at the famous Ponte Vecchio bridge.

 

 

The Ponte Vecchio bridge -- all those buildings that go across the bridge are shops -- mostly jewelery.

 

View from the hill side -- BEAUTIFUL!

 

Look at how big the Duomo is compared to everything else in the city!!! 

 

That's all folks!!  Sorry so long -- just so much amazing stuff!!