The side trip to Italy as part of the trip to Austria and the Czech Republic provided the opportunity to see a lot of architecture and history that has always been on my list of things to see in my life. My friends and I decided to take the opportunity while in Rome to take the Eurostar bullet train out to Florence and see another city while in Italy.

We grabbed a map for Florence out of the train station and started out walking tour of the city. The narrow city streets were full of buildings with amazing detail such as the one captured below.

We made our way over to the famous Ponte Vecchio which is one of the most highly photographed landmarks in the city. This bridge spans the Arno river and has always had merchants and shops on it since its construction. It was mentioned that the economic concept of bankruptcy originated here – when a merchant could not pay his debts the table he sold his wares on was physically broken. When walking across the bridge you quickly realize there are a lot of shops in a very small space and tourists are everywhere trying to make a deal on jewelry or other merchandise.

My favorite location during the walking tour of Florence had to be the Cathedral of Florence. This structure was truly impressive not only in its sheer size but in the details in the architecture. It is considered one of the greatest engineering feats during the early Renaissance era. It is also referred to as the Duomo, after the Italian word for cathedral.

This picture is of the beautiful fresco on the interior of the Cupola (dome) in the cathedral. This is a representation of the last judgment and was done by the Italian artists Vasari and Zuccari and required over ten years to complete. 

I am really glad we decided to take the trip – it provided a comparison point to Rome and for me personally I enjoyed the fact that Florence was a smaller city. It has the history, impressive architecture, great dining and shopping all in a small location that you can navigate easily. 

My final blog post in this series will cover the trip to Rome and will be up by the end of next week. I hope you enjoyed the pictures.