Travel: From Roma to Firenze

Today was our travel day from Roma to Firenze. We had a couple things to see before heading out of the city though. Our first stop was the MAXXI which was a museum for Modern Art of the 21^st Century by architect Zaha Hadid. It was an interesting building but one I could’ve done without as I rather have been on the way to Florence.

Interior of the MAXXI

We finally left Rome and we took a scenic route because Hans had something he wanted to see. We stopped in a small town called Collevalenza to see a church called Santuario dell'Amore Misericordioso. It was sited on a hill overlooking the rest of the Umbria region of Italy. It was very beautiful building. The main church brought people in from the dark to the light and the windows were arranged in such a way that when light shown in it was in the form of a cross. It was worthwhile to see.

Santuario dell'Amore Misericordioso

Interior of Santuario dell'Amore Misericordioso

Our next stop was in Perugia. It is a city built on top of a hill. We took a series of escalators that went through a vaulted underground complex before bringing us out into the town square. It was a very strange experience. We grabbed a late lunch and were on our way again.

Perugia city square

We reached Florence pretty late in the evening (at least by our travel standards) at around 7:30pm. Our bus driver wouldn’t drop us off at the hotel so we had to walk about a mile to get there. Our hotel is pretty centrally located as I can see the main cathedral from my window but otherwise the hotel is pretty bad. A group of us left the hotel to get dinner. It was fantastic. I got spaghetti carbonara and a glass of Chianti that was great. We walked around the Florence Cathedral which is usually just called the Duomo. We were all pretty tired so we headed back to the hotel for the night.

Florence Cathedral