Pre-Rome and Assisi Trip: Florence

I took a day-trip to Florence with some friends before joining the group in Rome for the beginning of our ten-day pilgrimage in Rome and Assisi.  Florence is lovely and very beautiful; but it's very commercial, too, which made it not one of my favorite trips.
The trains to Florence were a lot of fun, though.  It was my first above-ground train trip that went through the countryside, so I greatly enjoyed the scenery.  Our overnight train was great, too, because we met up with about 10 other people heading to Florence from Gaming.  So what did we do?  We crammed into one cabin of the train and prayed a Rosary, followed by fun times hanging out and singing songs from "Frozen."  :)  I also should mention that I kind of got childishly excited when I found that the train had cabins with seats and it made it seem like a modern version of the Hogwarts Express.  Haha! All I could think of was, "'Scuse me, do you mind?  Everywhere else is full."

Sleeping on a train was a new experience.  The least fun about it was that they wake you up like three times in the middle of the night to check your tickets.  Blaahhhh... 

Upon arrival, we found a church that had Mass at 7:30 a.m. when we had just pulled into Florence at 6:18.  God is good!  We think they were Dominican friars.  Everything was in Italian except the Agnus Dei, so it was not exactly easy to follow, but we managed. :) 

The friars wanted to show us the main church, but the main caretaker thought we were tourists and so he said we couldn't go in when we tried to follow the friars.  That was a real bummer.  

We saw the grand cathedral of Florence from the outside several times during the day.  It was enormous!!  We weren't sure how to get in without paying, so we only saw the outside.  But it was remarkable nonetheless.  

We stopped in a small cafe to get some breakfast: hot chocolate and a croissant.  The hot chocolate was so rich and thick! It was amazing.  :) 

Then we took to the streets, going our separate ways with our respective groups.  My group set out to find our hostel...which turned into an interesting adventure.  The hostel we thought we had booked hadn't received our booking, so the man contacted his mother about getting us a room at her hostel.  So we waited for her to show up, and then followed her to the hostel.  She pointed out a lot of good places to go on the map of Florence that she gave us, so that was great.  

The cool thing about Florence is that there are all of these small castles all around the city.  

A fresco of the Trinity above the entrance to one of the Churches.  

I liked this^ guy's pose.  Heehee.

We wandered around and found numerous churches along the way where we would pop in for some prayer time.  

There are Marian shrines along streets all over Europe, and I think it's awesome.  I look up, and there's my Mama.  

We also went into the great art gallery/museum that houses Michelangelo's David and a number of his other works, or photographs/plaster copies of his works across the world.  But, yes, I got to see the David and it was absolutely amazing.  Wow...it was so remarkable. The amount of detail that Michelangelo put into David is incredible.  You can see the veins in his hands and arms, and the expression on his face is so profound and so deep that you are left wondering what emotion Michelangelo was trying to express in it.  It's an expression of humility, but also of confidence; of innocence, and of courage.  

You aren't allowed to take pictures of the actual David; but I did get a postcard and a bookmark in the gift shop so that I could remember it.  There is also a copy of the David, the Mock David, that is out in one of Florence's main squares, and I got a couple of pictures of that.  

 Then we traveled out to the old bridge, and beheld this amazing view.

Another Church we visited. They had an absolutely gorgeous statue of Our Lady.  :) 

The next morning was a bit of a craze.  We made our way to the train station and had to figure out getting a ticket.  We ended up on the high-speed train to Rome.  The scenery on the way was amazing though.  I was in wonder at the mountains and the countryside, and wondered to myself what historical events happened in these areas thousands of years ago.  I think watching "Gladiator" the night before traveling to Florence had something to do with this thought process, heh.  But I liked Roman history, so that might also be why.  

We got to Rome, and then took the metro to the stop near our hotel.  I must say, it was a relief to be back with the Franciscan group and not feeling like we had to be in charge of everything. But Florence was a good experience.