The Adventures of A & M: Florence and the Beggars with Fake Babies

Book 2

We rode the train to Florence and once again got there pretty late. It was 9 or 10pm. Matt thought he could guide us there no problem and so instead of taking a taxi we started to walk. He was a great navigator and led us directly to our hotel. This time we were greeted with a smile and Dennis the desk clerk said our rooms were ready and he lead us right to them. He took Matt and I to our room first and it reeked!!! It had a terrible raw sewage smell. We didn't say anything at first but when my mom came in to grab her stuff we commented on the awful odor. She talked to Dennis and he said it was just how some areas of Florence smell because of how old their sewer system is. He did give us another room and though it was icy cold in the room it didn't have an odor.

When we woke up in the morning all of our backs ached from the rock hard beds that we slept in. Also Ty had started a new trend of crying in the middle of the night until we put him in bed with us. Then he would sleep but at one point his feet were in my face and his head was in Matt's face and we were both almost falling off. Needless to say we didn't sleep too well. Also another toddler was having a rough night and his parents must've been doing the "I'm going to let my child cry all night even though I'm not at home" sleep method. But, we were ready to start our day and see what Florence had to offer us.

We started our day at the Academia and got to see Michaelangelo's statue of David. Breathtaking and so worth it! Then we made our way to the town center and went inside the church with the Duomo. While we were walking around the church we saw lots of beggars. And many of them were creative with their tactics. There was a very large woman who sat on the church steps with a paper cup that she had pasted a picture of Jesus to and asked for money. Then there were the young women that would walk around with bundles of blankets that were wrapped to look like babies. They'd go around asking, money for the baby, money for the baby. Unfortunately you never really got to see the "babies" as the blankets always seemed to be covering their faces.

in front of the Duomo

Each brass square has a story from the bible represented on them.

the church was so ornate outside but inside it was kind of bare. very unusual.

in front of the old palace.

statue of neptune

street performer that Matt thought was sooo cool!

After checking out that church we went to the Uffizi Gallery which was very large and had very many famous medieval and rennaissance paintings. Mom was overwhelmed but honestly I think my favorite part of visiting these places was being among the people and seeing the architecture and the art that was all around us. The museums were neat but not as impressive as I was expecting them to be.

After the gallery we did some more wandering until we had to catch our trains (I made a mistake and booked us on 2 different ones from different stations and different times).