June 6-9, 2010 Italy!

Ciao!!
As you can probably guess from me not updating the blog, I have been pretty busy lately. A few days ago I went to the Baptistry by the duomo. The picture below is one part of the mosaic on the ceiling, it is so beautiful the picture does not do it justice.

Another of the places I went to recently was the Pitti Palace and the Bobli gardens. The Pitti Palace used to be a palace that the Medici family stayed in, and some other political figures when they were in power. It has now been turned into a museum. My favorite part was the costume museum, they had a bunch of dresses and suits from a range of time periods spanning from the 1400s all the way to the 1990s. It was so cool, and I saw a dress that I really really wished I could have taken a picture of. Oh well, after I wandered through this massive museum they have a really large 'garden' behind it. The garden is huge but its really just a bunch of trees and shrubs that they arranged to look decently pretty. I was not a big fan of it. But they had a great view from the top of the garden. The picture below is of a section of the old wall of the city and a view of the countryside. Another trip I took was up Michelangelo's piazza up on the south side of the Arno river. I have already been up there for really nice pictures but this time it was around sunset so the pictures are so amazing in my opinion. The first one below is a view of the city in general from the piazza. The second one is a close up of the ponte vecchio and some of the other bridges crossing the Arno.

On monday I went to Pisa and Lucca, mainly to see the leaning tower but also just to get out from Florence. The leaning tower was quite amusing, I was actually surprised by how much it is actually leaning! Lucca is a small town version of Florence and it was really nice, I recommend visiting there if you ever go to Pisa, its quiet but very picturesque.

There is so much else I have been doing, but it is really hot right now here and there is no AC and I can't open windows because of mosquitoes, so I have to stop writing before my lap overheats from the computer. Tomorrow I am leaving for the Amalfi coast so for sure I won't have any more posts until probably monday afternoon.