Florence is famous.

Here's my take on Florence: The people are cranky and everything is expensive. You have to pay to get into the Churches and the museums and the insides are rather ugly. On the outside Florence's Duomo is the most beautiful church I've ever seen but on the inside it's disappointingly ugly. The river has rats that are over a foot and a half long and Sam has the picture to prove it (no seriously, he has a picture of huge rat!) The entire city is very dirty and graffiti is everywhere, even more so than Rome. The sheer number of shady characters on the streets, along with human feces on the sidewalk and queer smells, make me shiver in my shoes. The only nice things are obvious and expensive tourist traps.

The entire city feels as if it has seen better days. In the past, Florence has been popular tourist destination. It seems as if the entire city adjusted to make most of it's money from tourism. After this, I guess they just let other business stop in favor of a tourism based economy. This, of course would put a lot of people out of jobs and encourage other incomes, like begging, pickpocketing, and illegal street vending. Everything in the city feels like it was nice at one time, but not anymore, everything is dedicated to the tourists. Our hotel for example, feels like it was once very nice but now seems to be more of a hookup joint, a shame.

Then again, I may not be being fair. The weather has been mostly bad for my first impression, and we were prepped with some pretty negative stories about how people were being constantly raped in Florence. To be fair, the shopkeepers have been mostly friendly and seem to value my business. Nothing bad has actually happened here, and the Church of S. Miniato was an awesome Benedictine, Albine monestary chapel. The museums are cool even though the lines are long. So Florence, take it or leave it. So Florence, not the nicest place I've ever been, but the museums and the Churches make is a worthy place for a visit.