Florence, Italy--You'll never believe what started here--today!

Florence was definitely on the list of places to visit during our trip to Europe. Mark and Denisa have fond memories of the day they spent here over twenty years ago. We remembered the Duomo (church), and we were excited to learn that Alexia had a special event planned. But you'll never believe what started here--today! Make your guess of what it might be, and keep reading to find the answer.

We were on a schedule, and we had to be out of our apartment at 7:00 this morning to catch a train to Florence. It's tough to get eight people up and dressed that early, but we did it. So imagine how sad we were to find that our metro station was closed, and we all had to run to the nearest bus station. Fourteen bus stops and one bus change later, and we ran into the Rome train station with just a few minutes to spare. We could finally relax on the high-speed train to Firenze (the Italian name for Florence). It was a 1.5-hour ride through the Italian country-side, including this field of bright yellow flowers. We were in first class, and we had bottled water, and a box breakfast that included a hard roll, nutella cookies, and crinkly shortbreads that we called "caterpillars."

Just a block after we got off the train in Florence, we found ourselves in a beautiful market with picture-perfect produce.

Another booth had hand-made pasta. Florence is all about the food!

We plan to learn how to make some of that food! We got up early to make it to this cooking class.

We got our aprons and our 00 flour, and were instructed to construct a ring of flour. That's where our teacher poured the slurry of yeast and liquid.

After working the ingredients together, we kneaded our individual pizza dough for five minutes. Then while our dough rested, we made the mixture for chocolate gelato. Sorry that we didn't take pictures of the gelato, but we ate it before it melted. It was mixed together by Katrina and Camden and two other girls that were cousins from the United States. Their grandfather brought the two girls to Italy, and he explained that he was a lawyer from Oklahoma City. It's a small world!

We used seminole flour to help shape the dough as we pressed and stretched it like our Italian teacher instructed us. While talking to her, we found out that our chef had lived in Italy for 15 years, but she's from Macon, Georgia. It truly is a small world.

The next step was adding toppings. We were allowed to use only three small spoons of sauce--because Americans usually ruin their pizza by adding too much sauce.

Our pizzas were scraped from the marble counter onto a long-handled pizza peel, and went into a 900 degree oven. It doesn't take long to bake at that temperature.

We thought that some of the pizzas were burnt, but Mark and Denisa's were perfectly baked! We were good pizza chefs if we had to say so ourselves!

Our chef teacher gave us a list of her favorite gelato places in Florence. Like good students that want to follow their teacher's advice, we tried to sample at all of them.

She told us to watch out for shops that have the gelato heaped into tall piles. That height comes from incorporating air into the gelato. You don't want to pay for air.

In between eating too much gelato, we did some Florence sight-seeing. Visiting the gold doors of the baptistery is a must-see.

The detail of these doors was stunning.

Florence was crowded, so we got in the long line that looped around the corner of the huge Duomo.

We made it to the front of the line and got to light a candle inside. The churches in Italy require that shoulders are covered, so Alexia couldn't go inside in her tank top until Camden let her borrow his t-shirt later.

Our favorite part of this famous church was the dome, and the fact that we could visit it for free.

Another must-see is the Accademia Museum, where Michelangelo's famous statue of David is climate controlled and protected. Lines were long and the price was high to visit this famous museum. So the next best thing was to see the replica of the David statue that stands in the open plaza several blocks from the Duomo.

After finding the statue, we went in search of the wine windows around the city. At a time when plagues were spread easily, sellers learned that doing business through these little windows kept them separated and healthy.

It was while walking through the city that we stumbled upon banners welcoming us to a biking fan zone. What's this about?

That's when we realized that the famous Tour de France bicycle race started from this very piazza this morning! They started at the blue flag on the left side of the map, and the bikers will pedal around 2,200 miles over the next 21 days to the finish line on the right side of the map. Fans and bike riders traveled from around the world to be in Florence today. Serendipity brought us here on the same day! 

The fan zone was filled with fun games to play, and the eight of us tried them all.

Players had to pedal in such a way to keep their average speed consistent even though they were going up and down inclines.

Six of our eight players won a prize at the big wheel. We cleaned them out of Tour de France cow bells.

We also got to see the bike trick show. This guy could balance on one wheel, flip his bike, and do crazy bike gymnastics. But he needed some volunteers to form a human line to jump over. You must be crazy to agree to lay on the ground while a bike attempts to jump over you. The guy in the blue shirt on the ground is a little crazy.

But he was still smiling after the successful bike jump. No tourists were harmed in the filming of this trick.

Once we left the fan zone, we saw the signs on the street that warned drivers that their car would be towed if they parked here. They needed all the lanes clear for the Tour de France bikers today.

What a fun thing to get to experience today!

Another must-see stop in Florence is the Ponte Vecchio Bridge. As we walked toward the bridge, we noticed the arches along the Arno river made for an interesting picture.

We walked over this famous medieval stone bridge, and got more pictures of the Arno River that winds its way through Florence. The Ponte Vecchio is the only bridge in Florence that was spared from the bombing destruction of World War II

It sure is fun traveling with a family members that don't mind being in our pictures!

Speaking of pictures, this family can't resist a photo booth opportunity. From the outside we could see that fitting six people into one booth can be a challenge.

This is what it looked like inside.

It was hot in Florence today, and we were tired by the time we walked back to the train station for the hour-and-a-half ride back to Rome. The sun was low in the sky as we passed those yellow fields of flowers once again. We had planned to learn about making Italian pizza and gelato, and we had planned to see most of the highlights of Florence's architecture today. But we would have never believed that we would find the starting point of the Tour de France on race day in Florence today!