An early bird train from Rome brought us into Florence by late morning. A charming medieval city that remains much the same today as it did 600 hundred years ago, we quickly discovered that its cobblestones and narrow streets were not very conducive to our caravan of luggage wheelers. We look like the Ringling Brothers Circus when we arrive in town and the route from the train station to the pension challenged our elephants!
The hotel Il Bargellino is run by a native Florentine (Pino) and his American wife Carmel. It was a very quaint two story B&B styled home that dates back to the 1500s. Best of all was the roof top garden terrace, which serves as ground zero for all of the guests. In the afternoons and evenings, the guests assemble there with their wine bottles to share their tales from the day. Everyone is so friendly — including Leopold, the resident parrot.
Kayla and Leopold got chummy on the first day at Il Bargellino
Florence is the birthplace of the Renaissance — and so we naturally spent most of our time in the churches and art museums that hold all of these treasures. We are all now quasi-experts on Italian artists for sure — and names of famous Italian lineages like Medici and Pitti just roll of the tip of our tongues.
The famous dome designed by Brunelleschi peeks around the facade of Il Duomo
The Byzantine era baptistry next to the Dome is home to the most amazing mosaic ceiling that we've seen on the trip
The contest to design these doors for the Baptistry is widely recognized as kicking off the Renaissance. Ghiberti won, ironically leaving Brunelleschi with lots of free time to figure out how to build the largest dome of its day.
San Lorenzo's reliquary houses the finger of the apostle Matthew. This whole idea of saving pieces of your favorite saints is new to us protestants from the US.
The ancient Ponte Vecchia bridge crosses the Arno River and is home to dozens of jewelry stores today.
After the high prices in Rome, we were glad to find the Euro Store in Florence. The dollar store in the mall has nothing on this place.
17 foot tall David is literally a larger than life stunning work of art. Zack covertly snapped this picture inside the Accademia when the guards weren't watching.
We headed up to a large piazza overlooking the city for a spectacular sunset
This dome climb was awesome and quite different than St Peters. At one point you literally head straight up the face of the dome, instead of spiraling around it.
After the hike up the 462 steps of the Dome, we were rewarded with this great view of the city
After two and half weeks in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, we are turning our sights north for a change of pace (and temperature) in Switzerland. We embark on a 8 hour, three train journey through Italy and into the Alps for Zermatt !
Our European Adventure 
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