I have no idea why there are such big gaps between pictures in this post, and I couldnt figure out how to fix it...sory!
Last weekend we went to Assisi and Florence. Both were beautiful! This is the church of Saint Clare (Santa Chiara?)who founded the fransican order of nuns. We werent allowed to take pictures inside, but it was beautiful and we got to see her tomb and some relics.











A view of the city from Saint Clare's














In the piazza in front of the church this man was dressed in traditional clothing playing an Italian bagpipe with his sheep dog in front of him. It was so picturesque!
















They're renovating this because of an earthquake that hit Assisi ten years ago, but its an old hospice that was used for pilgrims traveling to the churches in Assisi so they could get food, water and other necessities.










The church of Saint Francis (San Francesco). It was huge and had an upper and lower church. We got to see Saint Francis' tomb which was beautiful. The inside had frescoes around the church depicting the life of Saint Francis, which were beautiful. The big truck in front of the church was for when the pope came the next day (we missed him by a day!)








The courtyard of the cloister for the Fransicans








































There were strings of these doves all over the city!!




































Florence was fun. The area around all of the museums and tourist attractions was pretty, but other than that its not too impressive. The view from the river is gorgeous though!!




























The sunset was beautiful! We went out to dinner with our professors. They wrote off half of the check as expenses for the trip because they said we were charged too much to come to Rome. Haha. It was the BEST meal I've had in my entire life. There were about 20 of us, so we had to wait for the restaurant to clear out, and while we were waiting they served us wine in the street! Then they brought out delicious appetizers: bruschetta, proschiutto e melone (salty cured ham that you eat with cantelopes it was surprisingly amazing!), mozarella balls with tomatoes and artichokes, and great bread to dip in olive oil. Then for the main course we had three pastas: gnocchi with red peppers, penne with different spices and my favorite tortellini with a walnut sauce! It tasted like Christmas! Haha I could have eaten that forever and been completely happy.


The inside courtyard of the ufizi gallery, one of the famous museums. It had so many famous works in it that I've seen in my art history books! It was incredible to see them in real life!
































The outside of the big church in Florence, they just call it the duomo because of its big dome. It was the most ornately decorated church on the outside that I have ever seen, and it was surprisingly plain on the inside.







































The inside of the dome. It was beautiful!





































Mary Kate, me and Steph in front of the bell tower.





















































The outside of the dome
















































Santa Croce. This church was awesome. It had tombs of so many famous people, and not even religous people! Michaelangelo, Macchiavelli, Galileo, and an empty tomb for Dante since they dont know where his body is. It also had some famous frescoes by Giotto. It was really neat.














View of the ponte vecchio (old bridge) and the corridor leading from the ufizi gallery which used to be a medici palace to the other medici palace on the other side of the river.















The ponte vecchio is covered in expensive jewelry shops. Everything was so beautiful...good thing I didnt have extra money after my purse was stolen...
















Me inside the Galleria Academia with Michaelangelo's David! (PS: this picture is illegal, you do not actually see it right now)