Last week, I had my first ‘hits’ on Steemit with my posts on “the value of Philosophy” and on “the Philosophy of Bruce Lee” which together earned me some $5,000+. I was surprised, and pleased, that posts on philosophy were able to earn that much.
I cashed out around $700 worth of Steem Dollars, and used the money to surprise my girlfriend with a trip to Pisa and Florence in Italy for her birthday. All the while, we will represent Steemit on our trip!
Why Florence?
Ever since I was a little kid, maybe from the age of 8 or 9, the Renaissance painters and inventors intrigued me. I loved reading about Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Brunelleschi, Galileo and when I got older I read about the Medici family who were among the richest in Europe and who had financed much of the Renaissance. Florence was the hometown of the Medici and the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance.
Despite my fascination with the city, I had never visited it before. Thus, extremely excited, I booked us two return tickets, three nights in Florence and one night in Pisa.
Getting to Florence
After some 5-hours sleep, we prepared ourselves to take the train from my hometown Breda to Eindhoven airport. With nothing but our backpacks on our backs, we boarded Ryanair’s airplane and landed at Pisa Airport. At the Arrivals Hall, we bought a ticket for the shuttle bus that would bring us from the airport to Pisa Train Station, and we bought a train ticket that would take us from Pisa Train Station to Florence Santa Maria Novella (the main train station in Florence).
First night of sightseeing
Once we arrived in Florence, we were hungry and tired of the trip. We left home at 8:30 AM in the morning and had only eaten one small bread at Eindhoven Airport before we arrived in Florence at 5:00 PM. The first thing we did was trying to find a quick take away bite somewhere to eat at our hostel. McDonalds, which was conveniently situated next to the station, did the job. After 10 minutes of walking from McDonalds/Florence SMN, we arrived in our hostel. We took a shower, ate the 6 chicken nuggets and 4 chicken wings (I think the McDonalds worker accidentally gave us 1 chicken wing too many) and left our hostel for some inner town dinner and sight seeing.
Il Mercato Centrale
Our first stop was Il Mercato Centrale, which is an indoor food market. It received many good online reviews so we had to experience it ourselves. It is a great place to explore many different foods offers in Florence. Downstairs you have a large variety of fresh groceries, but it is only opened in the morning. Upstairs, you can find a food court with various frittos (fries), burgers, soups, pastas, pizzas, ice creams, and of course drinks. We sat down for our first Florentine dinner, which was a freshly made €9.00 ansjovis pizza.
The pizza base was amazing, smokey and doughy. The melty cheese was stretchy and held nicely together. The pizza was delicious! And it was large enough to share between the two of us.
Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore
Thereafter, we moved to the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore (Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Flowers) which is located in the heart of the historic center of Florence. The cathedral is a Florentine trademark. It was designed by Arnolfo di Cambio in 1296, but was completed with the dome that was engineered by Filippo Brunelleschi. It was one of the most impressive projects of the Renaissance.
The cathedral was built with splendid details. See for example the details of the main portal.
Ponte Vecchio
After the visit to the cathedral and the Duomo, we moved to the Ponte Vecchio. It is a spectacular medieval bridge over the Arno River and has shops on its sides owned by jewelers, art dealers and souvenir sellers. It was the only bridge that survived the Second World War. When we arrived at the bridge, the shops were closed and a street entertainer was entertaining a crowd with some soothing songs. We stayed there for half an hour to enjoy the view and the music.
Our way back home
Then we moved our way back home, passing the Piazzale Degli Uffizi where we found statues of Galileo, Leonardo da Vinci, Machiavelli, Dante and many more before we found a supermarket to buy some evening snacks and a bottle of water.
When we returned, we took a shower and I planned our next day’s trip. That’s when the first disappointment of our trip kicked in: all museums we wanted to visit were fully booked until August 29. That day, however, we had already reserved for a city trip to Siena.
It’s such a shame that we wouldn’t be able to visit the art museums!
Nonetheless, we had a lot of travel fun the next day. We visited the Piazzale Michelangelo, a nearby hill from where we could have a spectacular panoramic view of Florence. We visited one of the Medici castles, we had great lunch at a cosy Italian restaurant and ate some ice cream from an apparently very well-known Florentine icecream shop. And of course, we have represented Steemit throughout the day!
See our next blog article for the second day of our adventure… ;)