Family Weekend - Florence Part 1

The family took it to Florence for the weekend - kind of a birthday celebration weekend for Andy. Andy and I had been there together 11 years ago and we had such a great time filled with fond memories. Things have changed in Florence since then. The sights are all the same but the admissoin prices are sky high (and you have to pay to get into anything and everything) and the lines to get into anything in the city were miles long. Florence is still a very beautiful city with lots of things to do and see, but we didn't walk away with as many fond memories this time around.

Florence, Friday
The weather was really beautiful, warm and sunny. When we got there we, we ate luch, which was delicious, and walked around, getting the lay of the land.
The most famous Duomo:





The Ponte Vecchio:


Celebrity Sighting!!!! OK - this is very cool, especially if you watch the Travel Channel, like me. I'm walking along when I see a film crew at this outdoor restaurant, and I'm like "huh, I wonder what this is for", thinking its for Italian TV or something, when I peek around the corner and sitting at the table was Samantha Brown. I was soooo excited, ya know, because I watch her shows and everything. Andy got a picture of me standing behind her - I didn't talk to her because she was in the middle of filming, but it was pretty cool.


OK - back to the sights of Florence. The Palazzo Vecchio:



The Uffizi Gallery, which we pre-ordered our tickets to, thank goodness, or we would have never gotten in. The line for non-ticket holders was really long and didn't move.


The Uffizi was a lot smaller than I thought it was going to be but the Botticelli's alone were worth the price of the ticket.