I arrived to my hostel late in the day after getting a ride from Rome to Florence with a 45 year old lady taking her daughter to a One Direction concert, via a car-sharing website. The hostel is in the town of Certaldo in the Tuscan countryside, halfway between Florence and Siena.
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| Road up to the hostel |
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| One of the hostel buildings |
The day after I arrived, I took an early train to Florence and spent the day there. It being Sunday, I went to mass in the Duomo, bypassing the requirement for a ticket. The mass was lovely except for several tourists coming in, sitting in the front pews, and leaving a few minutes later, despite the sign posted saying that mas was going on.
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| The Duomo |
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| Ceiling of the Duomo |
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| Duomo. They like their churches patterned in Italy. |
At the recommendation of a lady I met in Rome, I also went shopping. The pavilion below was crowded full of vendors selling all sorts of leather goods, from jackets, to wallets and purses.
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| Leather market |
Next to the market was a good luck boar, the Porcellino fountain. If you put a coin in its mouth, and it lands in the grate into which the water flows, it's supposed to be good luck.
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| Il Porcellino |
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| Other side of the Duomo |
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| Graffiti |
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| Flea market I found |
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| Crossing one of the bridges |
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| View from Michelangelo Square on the other side of the river |
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| Different roof heights |
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| Corresponding graffiti on the other side of town |
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| Ponte Vecchio bridge, with shops along it |
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| Most of the shops were selling gold jewelry |
Finding the same graffiti on either end of town - what are the chances (unless the same thing is on every other house :) )
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