Part III: Italy Brings the Heat

Where were we? Ah yes, my mother and I were leaving Switzerland and its controversial blog content behind. Where to next? Florence and Rome.

Since I had never been to Italy, I was excited when my mother told me she had to read at a Literature Conference in Florence. Overall, this city was beautiful, cultural, and...hot.

In fact, when we arrived, we decided to walk from the train station to our hostel and stopped in just about every open shop along the way for the sweet feel of air conditioning.

During our short stay there, we had to wake up around 8:00 in the morning to visit museums and walk around because the sun and the heat were absolutely intolerable from 11:00 in the morning to 3:00 in the afternoon.

We did, however, visit as many museums as we possibly could in the two days we had.

As you can see, I am extremely mature when it comes to fine art, and wouldn’t dare take a photo with a man’s bum if presented the chance.

 

Lets blame my stupidity on the heat, shall we?

 

Anyway, Florence was everything I expected and more. My one regret, however, is that I did not see the tall, stone cold, goat-eyed, demigod I’ve been reading about since my second grade art history unit.

Michelangelo’s David.

It was really irresponsible too, because we actually visited the Florence Academy of Fine Arts, but we were really drained from walking so much and decided to go eat margherita pizza.

The pizza was unbelievable, though, so I’ll regard this little fop as another reason to return to Florence.

On our third day, we took a very, very long day trip to Tuscany. After four towns and a wine and pasta tasting for lunch, it was a sweaty and delectable experience.

By the end of that infernal day, though, I was ready to sit in the dark for the rest of my life.

We also visited Pisa, at which point I took this intelligent picture of my mother.

 

Yes, she’s trying to hold up the leaning tower from the wrong side.  

The day after this adventure, we took a train to Rome which was, at first, an intimidating city. We warmed right up to it, so to speak, because it was hotter than Florence.

This didn’t stop us from waiting in line for three hours under the blazing sun to get into Saint Peter’s Basilica.

I think this was about an hour and a half in, so don’t judge me for looking kind of weird. That was the last of our water.

 

 

We eventually made it, though, and walked the 400 steps up the dome. We earned our celebratory selfie.

 

To wrap things up, we visited the Sistine Chapel the next day, which turned out to be surprisingly small. The pictures on the internet and in textbooks make it seem so huge, but it’s really a tiny room with a tall ceiling.

 

It is also forbidden to take pictures inside the chapel itself, but my mother fancies herself a rebel.

 

 

David attributed to:

http://images.dailytech.com/nimage/David_Head_Staring_at_Rome_Wide.jpg