Farewell Firenze!

After spending almost four months in an entirely different country with little expectations and little idea of what I was getting myself into I can honestly say I have had the experience of a lifetime! After traveling Europe and seeing a crazy amount of Italy I was determined to have the perfect ending to the perfect adventure. So I started my final day in Firenze at one of my favorite places in the whole city, Mercato Centrale!

Mercato Central is literally the mecca of Italian food in Florence. It has everything you could ever want, all fresh and made daily! It is also home to the nutella muffin, the Italian breakfast of champions! I took in the last of the central market and wandered as much as possible until it closed at 2! After this we headed to the San Lorenzo market for some last minute shopping. San Lorenzo is home to tons of stalls offering everything from simple souvenirs to leather goods and conveniently located right next to the central market!

After spending some time in the market we headed to Santa Croce to finally see the inside of the church, which we had been meaning to do all semester! Not only is Santa Croce an incredible backdrop for Florence's annual Christmas festival, but it holds some very important people. Santa Croce was built in the mid 1400s and not only is this church important, but it is just as beautiful on the inside as it is from the outside!

Santa Croce holds the tombs of famous Florentines like Michelangelo and Galileo!

If you ever get a chance to see Santa Croce don't miss our on the garden area behind it! It's stunning and makes the visit that much more incredible!

After a day of last minute sightseeing and shopping we stopped for a true Italian snack at La Prosciutteria!

La Prosciutteria not only offers amazing food and wine, but a killer atmosphere as well. This is also one of my favorite and best meals in Florence. Its menu is filled with all amazing local Tuscan meats and cheeses paired with incredible wines of course!

After an amazing day and amazing food we headed back to the apartment for some last minute packing and reminiscing! After a few hours of packing we gathered the apartment and headed to our farewell meal at Mama Napoli's, a local restaurant we had been eyeing all semester. All twelve of us sat at a long table and shared tons of wine and food! My last Italian meal? Pizza of course!

After an amazing meal, we headed to the duomo to join the rest of our program in saying our final goodbyes to the city we called home and the cathedral that helped us get home many late nights, and yes we are kissing the duomo goodbye!

And that's where my semester story ends, kissing the duomo goodbye with my roommates that started as strangers and turned into family, or that's how I thought it would end. Florence had one more suprise in store for me as per usual! After kissing the duomo goodbye (literally) nostalgia got the best of my roommate Amber and I and we headed to the Ponte Vecchio for our last Florentine Farewell. We walked across the bridge and headed one bridge over so we could sit and see the Ponte Vecchio all lit up one last time!

As we sat there staring at the bridge and taking in the last of Florence, we hear yelling and see a group of what seems like drunken guys heading our way. We kept staring and ignored them hoping they would keep walking. As they got closer they kept chanting Firenze and cheering, so naturally we joined in! After a minute or so of cheering one of the guys pulls out a lighter and proceeded to light this crate on fire right there on the bridge. We realized soon enough they were fireworks! After a few minutes of stunning fireworks exploding over the Ponte Vecchio the group of guys left just as quickly as the came, and Florence managed to give us the most amazing goodbye. After having our own personal firework show there wasn't much more we could do, so we took our one last walk home to Via Santa Reparata, taking the long way of course!

So there you have it, all four incredible life changing months pictures and all! Now the big question seems to be if I found love in Florence. Where would eat, pray, Liz be without the final L? Well I did fall in love, not with an Italian man, or some beautiful exchange student, but with the city and all the amazing people it showed me, the perfect happily ever after to my Florence fairy tale!

"Travel...the best way to be lost and found all at the same time." 

Brenna Smith

The Best of Botticelli!

My final Wednesday in Florence, and probably my last Wednesday ever of not having class, my roommates and I spent seeing the Uffitzi! Construction began on the Uffitzi in 1560 and it is now one of Florence's most famous museum and is located right near the Ponte Vecchio, which it also has amazing views of!

Our main reason for going was to see some of the famous works of Botticelli! His main works featured in the Galleria degli Uffizi are La Primavera (Spring) and Nascita di Venere (The Birth of Venus). Of course no pictures were allowed to be taken in the museum, and of course we did anyway! Our first stop was The Birth of Venus!

Botticelli painted this in 1486 and was paid to paint it by none other than the Medici family! After this we moved onto see La Primavera!

This was pained four years earlier also for the Medici family. None only are both of this paintings incredible famous, but the are incredibly impressive and not to mention huge! Botticelli is a famous Florentine painter, that was also part of a committee to decide where Michelangelo's David should be placed! Not only are Botticelli's works in the palace impressive, but the entire building itself. Its filled with amazing rooms, art, and high ceilings covered in frescos! After wandering around the museum, we caught a glimpse of Palazzo Vecchio before heading home!

Christmas Time in the City!

Over the past month or so Florence has been covering the streets and buildings with lights and all sorts of decorations getting ready for Christmas. The first of these decorations was the tree the city put up in front of the duomo!

On Sunday by roommate and I stopped by the tree lighting by chance on the way back from the market and decided to watch. There was a parade and the whole city seemed to be gathered waiting for the duomo tree to be lit! Even though we really couldn't understand what was being said in the ceremony we understood what was going on once the tree was lit!

Not only is the duomo decked out for the holidays, but the rest of the city too, Like La Rinascente in Piazza Republica that is decked out if sparkling lights 24 hours a day!

And the streets are all lined with lights!

And even the store windows take the holiday season to a whole new level! Like Gilli of Course!

And restaurants and shops!

And even the street artists!

Florence definitely takes Christmas time in the city to a whole knew level and it makes me that much more excited to be home for the holidays!

Markets of Milan!

Sadly my Florentine adventure is coming to and end and this weekend was my last time leaving the city. A few of my roommates and I decided to take one final trip to Milan to see a little more of Italy for the Christmas markets! Italy takes Christmas super seriously and markets like the one in Milan pop up everywhere, but Milan definitely takes Christmas to a whole new level. We started our day in true Italian fashion by taking the Italo train, better known as the Ferrari train! The main Christmas market of Milan is located by the Basilica di Sant' Ambrogio, and that was our first stop of the day!

After taking a quick peak at this church, built in the late 1000s, we headed to the Festa Patronale di Sant' Ambrogio, the main Christmas market in Milan, with hundreds of stalls and everything you could ever need for the holidays! Before actually finding the markets we ran into Liz's cafe and of course my roommate Lizzie and I had to take a picture!

After this quick stop we finally made it to the Market! We were starving and decided to grab some fresh arancini (rice balls) for lunch!

After wandering through the market we decided to take a trip to see Milan's duomo in the center of the city. Not only did we get to see the cathedral, but their tree as well!

There was another market around the duomo, so we stopped to check that one out to!

These markets had everything from fur to food from all over Italy and everything in between, you could spend hours looking at everything they had to offer, and that's exactly what we did! It started getting dark so we headed back to the Train station. On the way we ran into yet another Christmas market and this one was French!

After a long last adventure in Milan we hopped back on the train and headed back to Firenze, for our final week in Italia!

Passing through Perugia!

Friday for one of my cooking classes we took a field trip to Perugia to visit a chocolate factory! A little background on Perugia is that it is located in the Umbria region of Italy and is know for its chocolate. It is home to one of the largest chocolate festivals in Europe, EuroChocolate, and The Perugina Chocolate Factory, which is exactly where I went! Perugina produced tons of chocolates, and their best known product are Baci!

These little chocolates are sold all over Florence, but this was the first time I actually tried them. They are addicting and the perfect combination of chocolate and hazelnut. The word Baci translates to "kisses" and each piece of chocolate is accompanied by little love notes wrapped in their trademark silver and blue foil. Before taking our tour of the chocolate factory we went through the Perugia museum to learn a little bit about the company which has been rated better than England's Cadburry. In the museum we got to see a replica of the World's largest Baci! This Baci was made for the chocolate festival and was made of Baci bars!

After seeing the museum we had a massive chocolate tasting of Perugia products, and then we took a walking tour through the factory. We saw all sorts of chocolates being produced from Bacis to chocolate Easter eggs to Valentine's day boxes! Not bad for a Friday afternoon field trip. We also had some amazing views of the sun setting over Lago Trasimeno on the ride home!

A Santa Croce Christmas!

So every year in Firenze right about this time a German Christmas market rolls into town and the roommates and I couldn't be more excited! Because of the lack of Thanksgiving in Italy, the city is full of lights and all things Christmas! Our countdown to Christmas began this weekend at the Santa Croce Christmas market!

This German festival is from the town of Heidelberg, which I saw and fell in love with about six years ago. The market offers tons of holiday items from candy to spices to handmade ornaments!

The market is filled with bright colors and is exactly what we all needed as the temperature finally began to drop! Although the Market offers tons of handmade goods it is most renowned for its German food of course! We started our day with traditional bratwurst with sauerkraut, which was delicious!

We walked along the stalls and grabbed some vin brule, a red wine served hot with tons of spices, that'll warm you right up! They also had hot cider with amaretto, which was by far the best! The market was the perfect way to warm up and get in the holiday spirit!

When in Rome!

Our final day in Rome we spent at one of the Italy's most famous sights, Il Colosseo! This is not only the largest Roman amphitheater, but the largest in the world! Back in its prime it was thought to hold around 60,000 people and the games held in the Colosseum are though to have lasted around eight hours!

We learned all about the games, the gladiators, and so many ridiculous fun facts. First fun fact, women and men not only couldn't sit together during the games, but they even had to use separate entrances so no canoodling could take place during the 8 hours of games! Nothing like the slaying of animals and people to really set the mood! We also saw remains of animals found in the Colloseum, everything from chickens, to bears, to horses, nothing was off limits in the games and soldiers as young as fourteen participated.

We also learned learned there was a specious of lion from Northern Africa (now extinct as a result of the games) that could jump as high as 15 feet! The first stadium seats were only 13 feet high so guards were hired to kill the lions of they made it into the stands. And one last animal fun fact? If a slave was able to kill an elephant they were granted freedom in ancient Roman times.

The Colosseum was definitely my favorite part of our Roman weekend, I could have spent all day wandering the ancient ruins and hearing stories of its part in the history of Rome. Right before our tour came to an end a man right next to our tour got down on one knee and proposed to his girlfriend right then and there. Just one more reason my Roman adventure was a memorable one!