Today, we took another day trip. This time, to the beautiful city of Florence, also known as Firenze. We had our daily breakfast at the hotel before making our way to the train station. After watching several trains blow through our stop, our train arrived and we embarked on our hour and a half journey to the city. While it was just a tad warm on the train, we enjoyed observing the Tuscan landscape on our way there. When we arrived, we met up with the tour guide and walked to the Santa Maria Novella church. Florence was the birth place of the Renaissance, but it is also a beautiful gothic city. This stunning church showcases elements of both eras. The interior of the church had many gothic elements because it was actually built before the Renaissance. Later, the façade was designed to take on new architectural features representative of the Renaissance by Leon Battista Alberti.

Next on our tour, we stopped at the famous Baptistry and Duomo. We learned that the Baptistry was actually seen as the most sacred part of the church because it represented the beginning of life in the Catholic faith. The building was impressive in both size and detail as it towered before us and had features such as intricate arches with colored marble and gothic rose windows.

We then took a brief break for lunch. The authors of this particular blog opted for an Italian classic: pizza. After lunch, we all met back up in the main square to get ready to tour the Uffizi Galleries. We were lucky to see famous art pieces that we had heard about at school but never seen in person. Our favorite pieces included The Birth of Venus by Botticelli, Madonna and Child by Filippo Lippi, and Holy Family by Michelangelo. As the museum is organized in chronological order, it was interesting to see how the art of Italy changed throughout the years.

After the museum, we headed back towards the train station. We said a sad goodbye to Luke before catching the train back to Castiglion Fiorentino. Back at the hotel, we had a delicious dinner before ending another beautiful day in Italy with gelato.