463 Stairs aka First day in Florence

   Yesterday morning we caught the fast train down up to Florence. I LOVE Florence and the feel and atmosphere of the town. It is absolutely beautiful here. You see buildings, mountains, green grass, green trees, it is beautiful!!! We dropped our luggage off at the hotel and then caught the bus to the center of Florence. Our first stop was lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe :) unlimited refills and ice (heaven). The next stop was the Duomo, this gigantic church in the middle of the piazza, the inside was gorgeous and I love stain glass windows. The Cathedrals here have strict dress clothes, your shoulders have to be covered as well as your knees. Luckily we knew this before hand so I was dressed appropriately, while others were not and had to wear these pieces of tissue paper fabric that had a hole to put your head through so your shoulders were covered or they had to wrap it around their waist. Dad decided that we needed to get to the top of it so we could see Florence. My first thought was no I am good on the ground but I lost that battle. So 463 steps later dripping with sweat, red face and breathing ridiculously hard we made it. I will have to say it was well worth the stairs because the view was AMAZING!!!!!! Absolutely breath taking, you could see all of Florence and then some. We stayed up there for a long time before making the journey down the same flights of stairs we climbed.
   After the stair climb we got a gelato and rested our tired legs and then went shopping.  After lots of shopping we caught the bus back to our hotel. Mom did a fantastic job picking the hotel!!!!!!!!!!! I had a big bed and there was space to move around and spread out and the bathroom was big.  Later that night we went down stairs and asked for a place to eat, they circled on the map where to go. It is safe to say that I am not the best at map reading, have 30 minutes of walking and a big circle we found the restuaruant HAHAHA. It was really straight down the road from the hotel. Ooops dinner was delicious and after dinner we found a super market. I have been looking for once since we got to Italy. It was just like the one in Spain and I felt at home. We were able to get a few items and then we journeyed back to our hotel. Where I was able to get an amazing night sleep. WOOOHOOO.