Florence, Italy

Our second stop on our Essential Europe tour was Florence, Italy and I'm not going to lie...this was probably my least favorite place. There just isn't a whole lot to do or see here. Of course the highlight was going to the Academy of Fine Arts and admiring Michelangelo's statue David. Did you know that this David is the David and Goliath David? I knew that, cause I learned it in an Art class in High School, but apparently ALOT of people don't know this fact. And in one hand he holds a rock and in the other a slingshot!! Kinda cool right? So this statue was amazing...unreal in person!!! HUGE!!! Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pics inside...but have no fear...they had much smaller replicas of this statue outside...and I came to the rescue and snapped a shot! You are welcome!!! So look for the pic in my Florence slide show...coming soon to a blog near you! jk! Ok so speaking of naked statues...we saw ALOT of naked statues in Europe...they we EVERYWHERE!!! It sure is a different world over there! Anywho back to Florence and what we saw/visited there. The "Magnificent" Cathedral, Giotto's Bell Tower, the Baptistry's heavy bronze "Gates of Paradise", and Signoria Square. For those of you that don't know...Florence is mostly "famous" for their fine leather goods and gold jewelry and after our little guided tour we were delighted to spend time in a shop specializing in each of these for a little demo and in the leather shop they had my sister in law, Laurel be a model for a fine leather jacket!!! She was SOOOO happy to oblige!!!! ;) We also found some REALLY cute purses!!! They were made out of leather...but they were KNOCK OFFS of Chanel and other BIG name brands and the designer was asking anywhere from the equivalent of 140-600 US dollars...and I am sorry...but that is just not worth it for a KNOCK OFF! Of course the one that I fell in love with was pink...and the most expensive one, I tried talking him down but only got him to like $400 US dollars...still WAY too much especially since I already knew that I would be making a BIG purchase in Switzerland (find out more about that in my Switzerland post...soon to come!!!) So needless to say I left Florence without my gorgeous pink bag!!!! BUT once again my awesome mother in law came to the rescue and for my birthday she found me an even cuter leather purse right here in our home town!!!! Imagine that!!! I'll have to get a pic of it on here...SO cute! Next up is Venice, Italy!