Waiting in line in Florence...

The majority of my time in Florence (or Firenze to the locals) was spent waiting in one line or another. The guide books don't lie when they say people wait for hours - I certainly did. Line one was for the Uffizi Gallery, which houses most of the de Medici's collection. The major problem with lines in Florence is that they are deceptively short; the way this line worked (which I found out 45 minutes into my wait) is that they let about 35 people in every 20-35 minutes. This means you move forward a significant amount and then come to a dead stop for upwards of half-an-hour. So frustrating! I ended up waiting right around 90 minutes to get into the gallery. It was well worth it once I was inside, however; the Uffizi has both of Boticelli's major works, "Annunciation of Spring" and "Birth of Venus." They also have several other works I recognized.

After the Uffizi, I went to the Duomo. Luckily, the line to get inside the church itself was quite short, but I waited about another 30 minutes to climb 463 steps inside the Dome. The views at the top were spectacular (and I certainly got plenty of exercise) though, so at least it was worth it. My final stop of the day was a church with the monuments to many famous people, including Machiavelli, Galileo, and Michelangelo. From there, I walked up a 35 degree hill to my camping hostel (for which I was prepared with bug repellant). The views from there were equally spectacular, though I think I was actually higher in the dome.

The one thing I saved for the next day (which was also the day I had to head to Pisa) was seeing Michelangelo's "David." There are two copies of it in the city: one marble at Plaza Vecchio and one bronze on Piazza Michelangelo, which was quite near my campsite. I had to complete the trifecta. Once again, there was a quite deceiving line; I ended up waiting for 2 hours and 45 minutes - yes, you read that right - and almost missing the train I had planned to take to Pisa. I made some line friends - 2 Americans and 2 Australians from Brisbane - so it didn't seem to take so long. When we finally got in, I basically went and stared at "David" for 10 minutes, looked at several other pieces of art, and dashed out.

My trip to Florence ended with my trip to Pisa to take pictures of the Leaning Tower, laugh at all of the interactions going on around me ("move left, no too far, right a little, good! Now turn your hands..."), and hop on a train to the airport for my flight to Barcelona. Were I ever to do Florence again, I would definitely pay the extra 4€ to get advance tickets for the museums - even those lines were sometimes quite long.

I'm in the home stretch now...