Hey everyone, Nate Hahn here! Looks like it’s my turn to write the blog. We have found ourselves on day 14 of our trip. Two weeks have never gone by so fast! We started our day today with some quick class presentations and then meandered our way out to the beautiful courtyard of our hotel, Palazzo Ricasoli, to meet up with our tour guide Mimi. Let me tell ya, this lady is a pro. Not only did Mimi completely rattle our minds all day with some outstanding historical facts, but she even came prepared with headsets for each of us. To put this in perspective for you, I think it may have been the longest time that someone has managed to keep the entire class awake, quiet, and attentive this entire trip (outside of class that is of course). Mimi started our adventures off by leading us to the Academia. The Academia is an art museum attached to an art school in Florence. It is also the home of the ever-famous Michelangelo’s David. You can see Grant doing his best impression of it in the pic below.

 

Mimi walked us through all of Michelangelo’s displayed works as well as some of the first pianos and some other beautiful string instruments that were owned by the Medici family a long time ago. She also told us about the origins of the piano and showed us some of the first designs. In the pic below you can see what they referred to as a “portable” piano at the time. Thankfully people have innovated smaller and easier ones… The next picture is of one of the violins found to be owned by the Medici family. If you can look closely, you are even able to see their family crest emblazoned on it.

After a very long, fun, and informative session at the Academia we found ourselves struggling a bit to keep going. Like I said before though, our girl Mimi was a pro and knew exactly where to point us to for some refreshing and life saving gelato. After refilling our tanks with some sweet savory greatness, she led us through the main plaza of the Florence Cathedral and into a church that not too many people get to see. Its origins were that of a grain factory but was later repurposed as a church during the Bubonic plague. This was due to the belief that one of the paintings was actually able to heal the suffering of some people. It was very easy to miss but contained an outstanding story of the life of previous generations. Below is a picture of Mimi telling us all about it while we sat and took a quick break in the pews inside before we made our ways back to the plaza and the Cathedral.

Sadly, it was time for us to say goodbye to our amazing tour guide. On the bright side though, our next stop was the Florence Cathedral! The real beauty for me was the dome of the old Italian architect and one of my favorite historical figures, my guy Filippo Brunelleschi. The dome was constructed as two separate shells, and because of this we were able to climb the stairs between them and get a majestic view of Florence from the top. Half way up the stairs we were also able to see the beautiful paintings inside the dome as we walked around its base. Let me tell ya though, those stairs were not made for tall people with big feet… After our ascent to the top of the dome, we then separated into smaller groups. My group decided we wanted to tackle the bell tower next to the Cathedral. There’s nothing like hundreds of stairs to get a healthy appetite worked up though. So before we made our way up the tower, we found ourselves in the warm embrace of a kind old man who owned a panini shop known as “Panini Toscani”. I think he was really just an angel sent to save our souls, because not only did he let us sample everything before we made our own paninis, but he also walked us through where each cheese, meat, and topping came from and how he stored it in order to give us only the freshest of ingredients. I’m not sure if I can do these paninis justice, but if you find yourself in Florence, I cannot recommend this place highly enough. Just look at the bliss Luke’s face as he attempts to eat his.

After my group had been replenished and our energy restored it was time to take on the bell tower. We worked our way up another few hundred steps to find ourselves at the top for another majestic view of the city. Let me tell ya, that is one view that I don’t think will ever get old. Thankfully the steps were slightly bigger too, so we were actually able to fit in the stairwells. After all of those steps, my group decided to call it a day. In the end, it was a lot of walking, too many steps, a couple of unforgettable views, and some fantastic historical stories. It will definitely not be a day that any of us will be forgetting any time soon!

Thanks for coming and reading everyone.

Sincerely, Nate