Our final stop on our road trip of Italy, was the beautiful city of Firenze, or Florence! By this time, we had had an amazing trip, and were winding down. Florence was a great place to end the trip.
The apartment where we ended up staying was pretty cool. Very much Ikea inspired and decorated :) Due to some miscommunications, we didn't get this apartment until a day or two before we arrived. A friend of a friend of the original apartment owner helped us to get this lovely three bedroom flat for a great price. Asher loved running around all the rooms :)
Our view from the little balcony... Not bad.
Getting ready to go out into town :)
This cute outfit is brought to you by our good friends Kat & Tj. Thanks guys!
Florence Cathedral
Doors of the Baptistry - Some amazing, intricate bronze castings of different Bible stories.
Hanging out in Florence :) My two handsome boys...
Ponte Vecchio - a cool, medieval pedestrian bridge with jewelry shops on both sides. There used to be only butcher shops, but a few hundred years ago they were kicked out and replaced with the ancestors of the gold and silver smiths that are there today.
I love the sun bathers on the side of the river, haha. Why not?
View from Ponte Vecchio
Sitting down for lunch, and enjoying some more pigeons before we walked through Palazzo Vecchio.
Asher likes mimicing what people around him are doing... he's imitating the pretty lady next to him :)
I really love this sculpture of Christ when he was a child
Basillica of Santa Croce - We found our one purchase from one of the artists outside of this church. It was one of the only paintings that caught both of our eyes, and after haggling and losing and walking away from it the first time, we went back the next day to make ammends and purchase it from the artist because we were such fans.
Our tuckered out little boy :)
Piazza Della Signoria - an outside, open air museum. There are tons of cool statues in marble, bronze and all sorts of mediums. One of the replica Davids is in this piazza.
Since Florence is the city of art, we saw lots of artists everywhere. Seeing the sidewalk art being done is truly impressive.
We ducked into a little gelateria for some gelato and Sean was thirsty, so we came across the most expensive little bottle of Coke that we have seen yet. 4 Euros a bottle!! That's over $5 a bottle! Ridiculous! We went thirsty...
And of course, you can't go to Florence without seeing Michelangelo's David. It wasn't quite what I was expecting...
Ok, ok, this isn't the acutal statue - but it is in the same museum as the real one! You aren't allowed to take pictures of the actual one, so this one will have to do. Just imagine it gray instead of pink and yellow - and a lot bigger and a little classier! :)
Strolling through Florence. We saw two missionaries out when we were playing by this pond. Talked with them a bit, and told them to keep up the good work! It's fun seeing missionaries all over the world.
Asher really wanted to get to the ducks...
We stopped him just in time :)
One of a couple times that Asher wanted to play with my sun glasses. He's such a cutie.
Working it. "Hey, Ladies"
An Arch that we came across.
One thing about Florence that I wasn't a huge fan of was the lack of green spaces and parks. This is one of two parks in the city. But Asher had a great time playing as we ate lunch.
As I look at the below pictures, forgive me for wanting to laugh everytime I see them. Asher was having a great time, and we really didn't spin him that fast. And every time we stopped because he got a little scared, he kept saying, "Again, again!"
Happy Asher, loving going round and round...
"Uh, uh, too much!! Too much!!"
I love this boy, he has some of the greatest faces :)
Part II of the sun glasses...
This is about the time he discovered he could pick his nose - we haven't been able to get him to take his fingers out ever since :)
The amazing city of Florence.
Checking out the overlook point of Florence - the Piazza Michelangelo, my two boys hanging out, having a great time :)
When we were done with Florence, we had a seven hour drive ahead of us to make it to the ferry to take us back to Albania. Prior to going to Italy, I had heard that there was an Ikea in Bari, the port city where we caught the ferry. I was so excited! Something familar, plus we could do some Christmas shopping and we had a car to take all of our stuff back. The plan was to stop at the Ikea, have dinner and then catch the ferry. I had gotten the address beforehand, mapped it out, plus we were borrowing a friend's GPS that worked in Italy, and it had not led us astray yet. Yet when I typed in Ikea, the closest one was either in Greece, or Germany. I just figured the GPS maps were older, and the Ikea must have been new. The fact that we passed about five to ten Ikeas throughout our trip should have tipped me off.
We started our final leg and had a great time. Asher was wonderful, and again, beautiful sites all around.
Another first of his, was the discovery of his "Monster" voice. It started out like this. We were driving along and Asher wanted something. Probably some snacks or another Elmo DVD to watch. When we didn't respond right away, Asher started this - "Elmo Mommy. Elmo Mommy! ELMO MOMMY!" And instead of screaming his last request - it came out in a scary monster/demon voice :) The first time he did it, we laughed so hard, and Asher didn't get his he wanted right away because he made us laugh :) Oh my goodness, I love this little boy :)
Asher loved passing by the windmills.
He would always say - "Mommy, daddy, look - round and round."
He happens to say the same thing whenever our Netflix or Hulu account is buffering and the circle goes "round and round."
Well, we drove our seven hours, plus a stop for lunch at McDonalds. And then we started getting closer and closer to Bari. I was sooo excited. We were going to Ikea! And then it was dark, and as we got closer and closer to where the GPS said Ikea was, the more and more worried we got. Let me explain one thing here. All of the Ikeas that we had seen up to this point were big, and right off the highway. So as we were driving through a sketchy small Italian town, not a quaint one like the other fifty we had diven through, we were getting a bit suspicious that we were in the wrong area. Especially when the town we were driving though was more like a downtown ghetto, only Italian :) And then we arrived at our "destination." The middle of nowhere. Well crap.
Then I remembered I had another address, and I typed that into the GPS - Yay! Only twenty minutes away. We can do this! And we drove through some dark, windy backroads, only to be brought to another... middle of nowhere. By this point we were borderline laughing/irritated. To Sean's credit though, I was expecting his reaction to all of this to be a lot worse and more annoyed. But he was really great about it! And Asher! Oh my goodness. By this point we had been in the car for about nine hours, and Asher had not complained once. Who was this child!!! An angel that made my day.
We decided to let it go and just head to the port. By this point it was 8pm, and the food court closes at 8:30 and the store at 9:00. So we started to the port until... Sean saw this tiny little sign that pointed to Ikea! I say let's go, there's still time! And this wonderful man actually listened to me! So we quickly got over and took the next exit that we were thought was the Ikea exit. And drove and drove and drove. We were on a main highway, we could feel that we were getting closer. Except we weren't. After driving a while with no sign, or blue buildings, we decided to turn around at the next exit and go back - Until... we saw another sign!! Yay! We took the exit, and tada! IKEA!! Only...we were on the complete wrong side of the highway and there didn't seem like there was a way to get there. At this point we were laughing so hard, and had pretty much given up, and decided to forget about it, it was 8:20, and we were done. So we took the exit to turn around, only to wind up where? The Ikea parking lot. Apparently, it was meant to be :)
We jumped out of the car, ran into Ikea and into the food court. Ordered whatever we could, and then I did the fastest run though/shopping spree of Ikea :) And I got everything that we had come for! Yay!
And we made it to the port on time to catch our overnight ferry.
We had the best trip ever. We love, love, loved Italy and highly recommend it. We want to go back someday, and spend a month in a villa with friends and/or family, and just enjoy it some more! Thank you Italy for being so amazing to our family. We can't wait to go back!
No comments:
Post a Comment