We’ll just have to see about that last part.

Nota bene: I’m still editing photos. Actually, I haven’t really started, because editing almost 300 photos is a daunting task.

Anyway, Florence isn’t going to take long. By our last day in Florence, I was at the point where I was starting to get tired of the whole traveling thing. Also, Florence takes less time to see than you think it does.

The only real activity we had left to do was the Academia, where David is housed. We had an appointment at 4:00. So we slept in, took our time getting out, had breakfast at the same great cafe we found the first day we were there (€1 each for cappuccino and croissant—the trick is not sitting down; they charge you extra).

Next, we shopped. We started by tracking down a book binding shop that we had found the day before—it was on the Via Nazionale, like I thought—right on the border of the tourist-y area. Got a few leather-bound notebooks. I figured they were a good substitute for the Moleskine’s that I couldn’t find. Next, we hit the San Lorenzo Market.

This place was a giant street market, the sort of scale that you’d expect from a street fair. I just spent about 10 minutes trying to find it on Google Earth so I could actually measure the distance, but it apparently doesn’t know what San Lorenzo is. And I have no sense of dimension, so it would really be a bad idea for me to guess. But trust me: this place was big.

We stalled for as long as possible by buying lots of different things, then eventually headed over to the Academia.

That museum exists solely to see David. Seriously—there’s almost nothing else of interest there. There are some unfinished statues by Michelangelo, which are really no more than very rough carvings. You can tell it’s human, but not much else. There was a musical instrument exhibit on display that I think was temporary. It was kind of cool though.

We weren’t allowed to take pictures at the Academia either, which was disappointing. Florence apparently wants to milk those postcard profits for all they’re worth.

And that’s about it for that day.

The next day, before traveling to Venice, we went to Pisa, because we figured it would be a good one day excursion. The problem? We went on a Sunday, so everything was closed. There were hardly even any taxis. We couldn’t find any. And the “Campo dei Miracoli” (or “Field of Miracles”, home of the Leaning Tower, the Pisan Duomo, and all that good stuff) is a 40 minute walk from the train station. So we got there and took a look at the tower. Then we decided we had done enough stairs over the course of this trip, so we didn’t climb the tower. We took a few photos, bought a few souvenirs, got some gelato (to reward ourselves for the walk—you shouldn’t lose weight on vacation, after all), and walked back to the train station, where we discovered we couldn’t get a train to Venice until 9:00.

So we got food. And waited. And waited. And finally we caught an uneventful train to Venice.

Once we got to Venice, we took a vaporetto, a sort of water bus system, to our hotel.

Venice is very stunning when you first get there. I mean, there’s water where there should be roads. I snapped several pictures of Venice at night as we made our way along the Grand Canal. None of them came out to my liking, but in the interests of full disclosure, I’ll put them up anyway.

And now, we’re down to 3 more days of vacation plus one quizbowl tournament. I, however, am tired, particularly of writing. I shall try to finish this tomorrow.

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