Hello All!!!

So in the last post i mentioned that i was taking off to Florence, Italy for a few days. What a fantastic city!!!

Our flight was rather early (6:30 am - Tuesday morning) so Ange and I took the train up to London on Monday. We met up with Hollie (mentioned her before - Emily's old roomate) and we went to a taping of...oddly enough The Hour (yes the Canadian show) which was taping in London because George S. was also covering the BritAwards. It was rather interesting. Had a chance to catch up on the news back home (when did Toronto get a Football team? - and by that i mean a soccer team)

The show aired on Wed. Feb. 14th so if you caught that show you would have seen me in the croud. The guests were Kelly Osbourne (did not get to see her because her interview was taped the day after) and the CNN reporter Christiane Amampour - she was really interesting and a very smart woman.

Here is a photo of Hollie and one of her friend that we went with:

So after that we caught the train out toward the airport - had 4 hours sleep and then caught out our flight arriving in Pisa, Italy at 9:00 am. We caught a bus to Florence and checked into our hotel by 10:30 so we still had plenty of time to explore!

First we went to the Sante Maria Novella (Church, Museum and Cloiser). They had some of the most beautiful wall and ceiling fescos that i have ever seen. Check it out:

In the museum we got to see lots of religious relics - that would be bits of sones from dead saints - kina odd especially as they are normally displayed in these extrodinarily ornate gold and silver display thingy's.

Next off to Piazza Santa Duomo where the famous Santa Maria del Foire Cathedral is. Yes it is huge and Ange and i climbed all 500 steps (thats 10 flights) to reach the top!!! It was so worth it check out the view.

Also went to to see the Baptistery of San Giovanni - which is where some rather famous Florinties have been iniciated into the Catholic faith. That would include Dante. It is octagonal in shape, which symbolizes the "eighth day" the time of the Risen Christ and the Christian belief of the resurrection after death. Sorry for all that techniqual stuff, but i thought it rather interesting myself. This building was constructed in the 11th centry, built with marble. In the 14th and 16th centries the three brass doors and the mosaic ceiling were added. The three doors (kinda famous ans very beautiful) depict events from the Old Testement (Michelangelo called this set of doors the Gates of Paradise), the life of Jesus, and the life of John the Baptist.

So at the end of day one we were a bit tuckered out to say the least. Hope all is well. Will finish Florence in next blog. TTYL, M.