Day 1 Florence: Uffizi Gallery and Pitti Palace

After waking up from our coma like sleeps, we headed down to the Uffizi gallery with our reserved tickets on the way we stopped for a delicious Italian breakfast at a small shop on the way to the Ponte Vecchio. The breakfast was fresh fruit, a pastry chocolate croissant cream croissant and the cappuccino and juice also toast cause it wasn't enough before. If you get the Ponte Vecchio before 9:00 am, there are almost no tourists and the jewelry stalls aren't open yet.

After standing in line for only 10 minutes, we were into the Uffizi where we saw so many wonderful things that it's hard to find words for. We listened to the Rick Steve's audio guide as we made our way through pre-renaissance and Renaissance art. Some of our favorites were an unfinished piece by Leonardo da Vinci, The labors of Hercules which surprise Bridget by their diminutive size, and Bridget pointing out that all of the feet in the birth of Venus are all the same because Botticelli's shop would have had a foot guy.

After lunch at the Uffizi Cafe we used our passport for the Uffizi gallery to get into the Pitti Palace. The palace had amazing frescos on every ceiling in the rooms we went to and the art was just stacked on top of each other chockablock. It was a little overwhelming, especially after spending the morning in the Uffizi so we did not spend as much time as we could have in the Pitti Palace, but then it was time to go back home and take a nap.

After our nap, we took the bus down through the central station and to the Central market. Unfortunately the stalls in the basement of the central market were closed, but we did have a delicious dinner. On the second floor, Bridget and Tish had vegetable dumplings from a little Chinese stand and I had a lovely pasta carbonaro which dish even liked the pasta. We also got to see the train station we will use in a couple of days to go see Rome.