Volterra, San Gimignano, and Florence

Last Thursday we went to Volterra and San Gimignano. The drive there was beautiful, all the grape vine leaves are changing color. Sadly it rained most of the time...I never thought I would hate the rain but I have had to walk around in it so much here that I am DONE! Anyways, as many of you may know, Volterra makes an appearance in the second book of the Twilight series. I'm not ashamed to disclose that I am slightly obsessed with these books, as are many girls on this trip. Obviously we had our eyes peeled for any beautiful, paled skinned, "humans". This was the one good thing about the rain, perfect weather for a vampire. I'm sad to report that once again, Bella is a baby. The "huge" piazza that she has to run through to save Edward is in fact very small, at least in comparison to the Campo. Unfortunately, the closest to an Edward siting I got was some tacky graffiti with phrases like "Dazzled by Volterra". However, Alessandro did confirm that there are real myths, is that an oxymoron?, about vampires in Volterra. Apparently their Saint, Saint Marcus(who is a vamp in the book), banished all the vampires from Volterra, but some people thought St. Marcus was a vampire. Creepy? Unfortunately because of Stephanie Meyer it is impossible to find out about these myths on the internet since any search yields info about the book.
Okay so besides this vampire business, Volterra was cute and medieval and had awesome views and a cool Roman amphitheater. Classic Tuscan hill town.
San Gimignano is more touristy than Volterra. Here we learned about the frescoes in the main church, but otherwise it was all about the shopping and eating at a gelato place that won at the World Gelato Championship. Yes that is a real thing. I had mango and pear and it was amazing, definitely worthy of an award.

Florence. I went to Florence three times, it's only an hour and a half away. I absolutely love Florence. This is the kind of place I would want to live in Italy if I were really living here forever. It's a big city but not too big. Leather can be found on nearly every corner-I got some brown cashmere lined gloves! The first two times we went with Peter and he took us to various churches slash museums for part of the day. The Uffizi there has some very famous paintings including one of my absolute favorites, the Birth of Venus by Botticelli. We have this awesome pass called the Friends of Uffizi pass which lasts for a year and gets you into all the big hitters, it's only like 40 euros. So I saw the David twice. The second time I just really needed a bathroom. We went to the Brancacci Chapel where Masaccio's famous frescoes are. I know this all isn't interesting to you, but I studied all of this in Art History so it is awesome to me. The highlight at this place was the 40 minute long movie they make you watch before. I can't even remember anything it was about but I had to hold back laughter the entire time because of the voices on the English translation we were listening too. The first time I was looking for the right channel on my headset I passed the English because it didn't even sound like English. It sounded like Roy the vacuum guy. If you don't know who that is, ask me for an impression next time you see me.
I also saw where Fra Angelico lived as well as a huge collection of his work. Oh, the Pitti Palace, the Medici summer home, had an awesome costume collection that I loved! The Bobili gardens there are also so beautiful, the set for a Jane Austen movie. The Duomo there is absolutely beautiful and I climbed to the top of the Dome to get a beautiful view of the city. There is also the Ponte Vecchio, the only bridge there that wasn't bombed in WWII. It is now lined with amazing jewelry stores. We drooled at the windows every time. All of these pics are in my Picasa web album. My favorite finds in Florence were: 1. This little clothing store just before the Ponte Vecchio. It's just a man, his laptop, and his clothes. They are really expensive, but he is the designer and he literally dressed us. Anna got a wrap around sweater that you can wrap in an infinite number of ways. He wrapped her up in that sucker like 20 different ways. 2. This panini place by the Duomo, I took a pic so I could remember the name. I always got pecorino cheese and sun dried tomatoes. Don't worry, I just bought an entire wheel of pecorino at the grocery store to bring home.
That small synopsis didn't do Florence justice. I love it there.