Deja Vu Firenze

Since classes were cancelled till Wednesday this past weekend, following our trip to Belgium I followed Madi back to Florence for a few days.

This was a fun and different trip for me, as I have already been to Florence with my family. So rather than running from site to site trying to see every little thing, I wandered the side streets and hit up my favorite spots from before. It was weird walking the streets that I had walked just a few years before but with a new perspective and new people, I had a very distinct deja vu moment when Madi took a picture of me near the Ponte Vecjio in the exact spot my mom had taken the same photo of me on our last visit.

Familiar Spot at the Ponte Vechio

It was great to see the Duomo, Uffizi and plaza outside the academy again, but I really enjoyed spending the day exploring the various markets. The central market was really cool (but to be 100% honest, Valencia still takes top ranking in my opinion), but what I found really neat was the absolutely massive leather market that surrounded it. I have finally found that my guilty pleasure of traveling/ favorite reason to lag behind is watching the local street artists in different places. The artists throughout Florence were really neat, most were oil painters that mainly stuck to the landscape around as well as popular sites in the city, a few though had really interesting topics; I really liked one man who painted old cruising bicycles in front of various Italian buildings and doors, there was another who painted these beautiful pictures but with thick paint and then pressed glass on top to smudge all of the edges and make it slightly abstract, my favorite though was a man I talked with for a while who had a cute dog in a vest who picked his subjects at random, drawing inspiration from the people who walked past, he was currently working on a piece of the Tuscan countryside but filling it with these big beautiful and bright flowers that he picked up from the print of a woman's dress.

Central Market

Cathedral/ Duomo 

Outside the Academy

That afternoon we went up to the Piazza de Michelangelo for sunset, which was a new site for me, it has amazing views of the entire city. We also visited the Monastery that is just beyond the Piazza which had phenomenal views and beautiful architecture.

Piazza de Michelangelo 

Monestary

Tuscan Sunset

After the day we grabbed pizza for dinner which was really really good, and finished it off with a nutella pastry from the bakery across the street from Madi's apartment. And don't worry I also had my fill of gelato and canolis throughout the day.