The Battle of Evermore: Tucked in the Hills of Tuscany...

...is a wonderful city called, in English, Florence.

We said goodbye to Venice on Jan. 1st. It was a wonderful start to our vacation, but it was time to move on. Next stop was Florence!

Parting shot of the canal that we stayed along.
We found out that Florence's real, Italian name (Firenze) bears almost no resemblance to it's English translation when we couldn't find it in the "destinations" section of the self-service ticket counter in Venice. But thanks to a helpful, English speaking counter lady, we got our tickets and headed that way. Don't I look excited?

Why Lane wanted to get up at 8 after staying up so late
for New Year's is beyond me.
I knew that a lot of famous people had lived in or were born in Florence. The list is quite impressive actually. Dante, Michelangelo, Donatello, Raphael, Leonardo di Vinci, Machiavelli, Galileo, and Florence Nightingale.

There are many very famous museums to see in Florence with the most widely known being the Accademia, home to Michelangelo's David. But honestly, I didn't really care to see it and I don't think Lane did either. So instead, we just wandered around the city, seeing it's numerous towers, nice river with pretty bridges, and expensive shops. We spent a couple of hours resting in a cafe and then had a wonderful dinner that night in the McDonald's in the train station before heading back to Rome. Enjoy a few shots of Florence.

One of the many towers in the city. I have no idea what their significance is, but there were quite a few throughout the city and I took a picture of every one!

The Duomo. This is a famous church that is huge, covered with beautiful tiles, has a massive dome and a tall tower, and impressive bronze doors on the baptistry it faces (which is the oldest building in the city). It's famous for having the largest brick dome in the world and was the biggest cathedral in the world upon it's completion.