Firenze

Astronomers usually know where to have their conferences. it's a well known thing, that they like the nice exotic places, and the organizers strive to lure more and more people to their meetings just by locating them at attractive locations. some very common examples are Aspen (possibly the fanciest ski resort in the US) and Hawaii. Unfortunately, although all those nice places i've been to make me seem like a well traveled individual, i always feel like all i ever see is the inside of a lecture hall.
since i was never rich, and those conferences can be expensive and time consuming, i usually scheduled my flights to exactly bracket the days of the conference.
at some point i decided to leave a couple of days to exploring the places i go to, and this is sort of the first time it happened.
I arrived Florence (Firenze) on saturday, met with Assaf, and we spent the day walking all around town and the hills above it. The city of Firenze is dotted with sculptures, fountains, extravagant buildings and churches, all created by the most famous artists and architects of the 13-15th centuries. The streets are very narrow, and the sidewalks don't leave room for more than one person, but still there's quite a lot of traffic - tourists and cars seem to crowd the streets with very little order.
After going through some Piazzas, we decided to cross the river, and climbed up on the hill overlooking town on a whim.

The river you see in the picture is the Arno, and the closest bridge is (the famous) Ponte Vecchio. The top part of the bridge is actually a long corridor, that starts from the palace to the left of the picture, goes over the bridge, bends 90 degrees and goes along the river, then bends again and goes into town, all the way to Palazzo Vecchio - the palace in which the governors of the city sat. This allowed the important people to go frome home to work without stepping in the streets. It is (if i remember correctly) about 1km long.
The next day, we stood in line in the rain for about an hour, and entered the Academy Gallery (to which i think i will dedicate a post), so totally worth the wait!!!! i enjoyed it very much. Later that day, we checked in to the hotel in which we stay for the duration of the conference - Villa Agape. It's actually a convent, and a few tiny old nuns run a guest house in it. It's pretty nice, except for everything being very small (the beds, the shower...) and the curfew that we have to obey by getting back no later than 11PM. This curfew thing is very weird, especially at a conference with social activities (probably the most important thing in conferences is to meet people and make connection, usually by spending the nights getting drunk together). I sort of liked that curfew idea for the first three nights, since i still had to prepare my lecture (i didn't have anything prepared until i got to florence!).
The afternoon of the third day of the conference was dedicated to a guided tour in the Uffizi Gallery, an amazing art gallery displaying works of art fromt he glorious days of Florence. The main attraction there is Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus". I have a lot to say about my experience there, so will keep it for a coming post :)
in short, i was very moved.
today is the last day of the conference, and tomorrow we will have some more time to explore and then off to Rome!