Friday, May 18
10:15 am, Florence – The breakfast at AC Firenze is definitely considered an “American breakfast”, with eggs and bacon, but also has Italy bakery selections. After we get up and have plenty to eat, we meet downstairs where Rebecca and Marta are waiting to take us towards the Florence city center and our walking tour of the city’s attractions. We arrive at the Piazza Santa Maria Novella (which is obviously in front of the Basilica di Santa Maria Novella) and meet our tour guide for the day, Sara.
From here we make our way through the narrow streets of Florence to the Palazzo Strozzi. This palace is extremely interesting because the locals were actually able to walk around the downstairs portion, while the owners stayed on the upper floors overlooking the miniature courtyard.
After walking through the Palazzo Strozzi, we make our way through an enormous archway which leads to the Piazza del Repubblica. This is one of the larger plazas in the city and is lined with a lot of restaurants and shops. One point of interest in this plaza is an old city map of Florence that shows the layout of all the local historical buildings.
We head south from the Piazza del Repubblica and walk on Florence’s most famous bridge, Ponte Vecchio. This isn’t your typical bridge as, not only does it have an amazing view of the river and city surrounding it, but it is lined with shops that sell jewelry and other items only made of gold. Quite a bit out of our souvenir budget, none of the guys stop to buy anything, just to look.
Once we are able to drag some of the parents away from the gold shops, we make our way to Florence’s most famous plaza, Piazza della Signoria. This plaza holds one of the most amazing (and underrated) galleries in Italy, Galleria degli Uffizi, along with Palazzo Vecchio, and the Museo Gucci. Our guys stop for a while to get plenty of pictures with all of the statues outside of Uffizi, before we continue on.
Our next stop is definitely a sight that everyone needs to have on their bucket list – the Piazza del Duomo, which holds the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore. This unfinished cathedral is enormous! It is hard to put into words how spectacular this structure is, as every inch of the building is so detailed.
Our last stop of the tour is the Galleria dell Accademia, also known as the home of Michelangelo’s David. Luckily Rebecca had the tickets ahead of time and we were able to go in right away, because the line outside went all the way down the block! Once inside, we were not allowed to take pictures and anyone who disobeyed was quickly yelled at – “NO PHOTO, NO VIDEO!” While the Accademia holds lots of rare and amazing paintings/statues, the Statue of David trumps them all. The sheer size of the statue is impressive and pictures don’t do it justice, but the detail of the statue is what puts this piece of art in a league of its own. Sara tells us that Michelangelo actually slept at the feet of David for the three years that it took him to sculpt it – now that’s dedication to your craft!
2:00 pm, Florence – After our tour with Sara, we pop into a nearby restaurant, Trattoria Zio Gigi, for lunch. This place is exactly what you think of when you think of a small Italian restaurant, there is even a boisterous waiter named Tony who pretty much sang 75% of the time we’re there. It is another delicious meal, but the highlight of the experience is when Tony sang to Coach Cunningham’s wife, Mary Jo, for her birthday. It’s not every day you get serenaded in a restaurant in Italy for your birthday!
7:30 pm, Empoli – It’s been another long day on our feet and, again, it shows during our second game of the tour. We drive about 15 minutes outside of Florence to play USE Empoli, which feels like a suburb of Florence. The gym is very nice for a smaller European club (Rebecca tells us this team is in one of the top leagues of Italy, but not the premier division). The game is a little bit better than the first, but not by much. We struggle with making shots and keeping up with the European pace, especially since we have 4 players on the injured reserve for the game (both of our point guards didn’t play). The competition is very good – Empoli can really shoot the ball. We end up losing the game 82-87 to probably the best team we will face on this trip. From a basketball standpoint, it was a great experience for a lot of our guys, as we had to ask a few new faces to handle the basketball against their full court pressure.
