- I have a question for you.
Are you gonna eat it or not?
Guess who.
Eat it!
(gasping dramatically)
I wish I could.
(upbeat music)
(bright string music)
- Good morning, everyone!
- This morning we are traveling from Rome to Florence
or Roma, Roma to Florenze (chuckles).
I think.
That is quite the distance,
and we are traveling there in about an hour and 15 minutes
on this fast train,
and then we're gonna spend the afternoon in Florence
and then come back later this afternoon.
Mind-boggling to me!
I have traveled from Rome to Florence before,
and it is a long, long, long, long trip.
You don't go there for a day trip.
At least you didn't in the past, which I am from.
(laughs)
This was all arranged for us by LivItaly Tours.
Christopher and I have a friend from college named Angelo.
Angelo founded LivItaly,
and he also co-owns it with his wife.
So they've set this whole day up for us.
I'm really excited.
Their motto is, "Don't just visit Italy, live it."
That's what we're doing today
because we are going to see the David,
which is my favorite art piece.
- [Parker] Me too!
- Yeah, Parker's very excited,
and that's like a typical tourist thing to do in Florence.
But also we are going to go to a culinary school, I think,
and we are going to learn how to make gelato.
- Hi, guys!
I have a question for you.
Are you gonna eat it or not?
Guess who.
Eat it!
(gasping dramatically)
I wish I could.
I have another question.
Is the David a real marble or a fake marble?
Real!
I have another question for you.
We're going to see
the David
and we're gonna learn how to make gelato,
and I'm eating a sandwich right now.
Sandwich.
That's my sandwich.
Bye-bye!
(upbeat music)
- [Chris] It's going pretty fast, huh?
- Yeah.
(upbeat music)
- [Jessica] How's it going, guys?
- [Kids] Good.
- [Jessica] Jacob, you're such a good big brother.
- You doing fine, Duncan?
Yeah? - Look at Dad.
- [Jessica] Daddy's sleeping
- I had the best dream ever last night.
I was in the hotel, I was like,
"What's happening?"
Our friends were like next door to us
and like so close to,
uh, Matilda, and like,
I didn't have any dreams like this,
but I was so close to Matilda,
and Bailey was like, "What?!"
And then we tell Jacob and he's like, "What?!"
And then we tell Daddy and like (gasps).
And then we go look at the screen and we get to be in it!
We go in it, and Daddy's the dancer,
Mommy's the pregnant girl.
I'm Matilda.
We put a wig on me,
and then I do a cartwheel and my wig falls off.
But, no it's taped to my head, so it can't fall off.
And then it was so fun, and then Bailey was Lavender.
Jacob was the boy who ate all that cake,
and our friends were the kids.
Then I woke up, and that was the end of my dream.
- So this has been a nice ride.
I can understand why Christopher fell asleep
because my eyes feel kinda tired too.
Oh, hey, buddy, you sleepy-head.
How are you doing, handsome?
- I'm good, I'm tired.
- [Jessica] How was that nap?
- [Parker] That's never worth it.
- It was good.
I could just keep going to Milan.
- [Jessica] You snored a lot.
- Did I really?
- [Jessica] No, but that would've been funny.
- [Chris] Did you guys have a good train ride?
- And I got juice.
- [Jessica] Yeah, what kind of juice?
- Apricot juice.
- [Jessica] Explain what apricot juice is like.
- It's like you drink a little bit, and then it goes.
(swishing noises)
- [Jessica] Why is it doing that to you, Jacob?
Is that healthy?
- Yeah, really healthy.
- (laughing) Yeah, really healthy.
- Welcome to Florence!
We're here.
Train is stopped.
I feel well-rested.
I don't think anybody else does.
But I do!
I love this city.
I can't wait to go explore with the kids
and show 'em all the cool things!
Let's do it!
(upbeat music)
So this church here is a little unusual.
It used to be a place where they stored grain,
and the pillars that hold up the main room
are actually hollow inside,
and they had these chutes where the people upstairs,
where the grain was kept,
would send down grain to the people who had bought it.
So they'd buy grain,
bring a sack up to the little opening in the chute,
and the amount of grain that they purchased
would come sliding down and they'd have their grain,
and then they converted it to this church.
So these are the trash cans here
or some of the trash cans here.
They look a little different,
so at first, we just passed right by 'em
'cause we didn't know what they were.
But what you do is, you step here and it opens up
and you put your trash inside.
That's right, the trash is actually underground
in these big cylinders and then a truck comes along
and grabs this thing,
lifts it way up into the air
and then dumps it into the back of the truck.
That's how it works here.
(soft upbeat music)
Is that fun?
So much fun.
(upbeat music)
The fountain that's behind me there,
it's kinda like the Trevi Fountain,
in that people make a wish to come back to the city.
But instead of throwing a coin,
you touch the fountain if you wanna come back to the city,
and then you can also make a wish
by putting a coin inside the boar's mouth,
and it falls out of the mouth
and if it falls in the grate between the boar's feet,
then your wish will come true,
and you get three chances to do that.
- [Woman] So, now you concentrate, make a wish in your mind.
And then let it go.
Now you pick it up again.
So you get three tries, hoping that it goes in the grate.
Okay, concentrate again.
Very good! - Yes!
- [Woman] Jacob, think about it.
- There you go! - Good!
Another time. - Almost.
- Almost, we get two more tries.
Another time. - Last try.
- I'm sure if we catch it, we can do a fourth time.
Try another time.
Sometimes, whenever you don't go well.
Okay, just concentrate, good.
Let it go.
Very good! - Yay!
- [Chris] How many chances did you try?
- Four.
- [Chris] Four, okay, we'll say three.
We'll just say three.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- [Jessica] We gave Parker a bonus.
- It didn't go all the way in the hole,
so I just pointed it in.
- Oh, you just pushed it in there?
Parker's taking control of his destiny.
(upbeat music)
- This square is Piazza della Signoria,
and it's one of the most famous piazzas in Italy,
and it must be the most famous in--
- [Woman] In the world, they say.
- The most famous in the world.
So you guys probably already know about this one.
- This is one of the largest collections of statues
in an open air exhibition.
Basically, the Medici family thought it was important
that everybody be able to see beauty.
So they had this area made up
with all these beautiful statues.
Three of the statues are now replicas,
but everything else is originals.
And it's so cool.
Anybody can come here and just see all this wonderful art.
You may have noticed the David here.
That is a copy of the real David,
but that's where the real David used to stand,
and they decided to move it inside of a museum.
- We're going to the gelato making place now!
- [Chris] We're going right now?!
- Yes!
- [Chris] How excited are you about gelato?
- I'm super excited, I'm super excited,
I'm super excited, I'm super excited.
There's horsey right there!
(bright string music)
- [Jessica] That's the banana ice cream the kids made.
Oh, that's quite the sample.
(both laughing)
- Florence used to be a Roman city.
Well, it was part of the republic of Rome.
But unlike in Rome, where you see a lot of the architecture
from that time, the ancient architecture,
here, it's all newer architecture,
and it's very hard to find a place
that has some of the actual Roman stone.
A lot of the original city is like 12 feet below us,
but there's a shop here.
Right now, it's a designer shop.
I think it's -PN\P is what it says on the door.
In there, they have a glass floor,
and down below the floor, you can actually see
some of the original Roman stones.
- This is your ultimate restaurant
because do you know what it's called?
- What?
- It's called The Yellow Bar.
(upbeat music)
Yellow!
- So if you visit here from the States,
you might be surprised
that the pizza shows up at your table not cut,
and you cut it yourself.
You can ask them to cut it for you,
but you cut your own pizza here,
and that's just how they serve it.
- And you can cut it into slices
or you can eat it with a fork and knife.
People do either here.
You're doing great, Christopher!
You got this! - Oh, thank you, thank you.
- In some places, they do it in different ways.
Like in Naples, they'll actually just fold their pizza
into fours and eat it as a wedge
that's been folded into fours.
The pasta here is handmade,
and it's made from a special flour
that is an ancient grain.
So it's not a pure white
because they're made of these special ancient grains.
This ravioli is a butter and sage ravioli
with some Parmesan, and here is a gnocchi.
- This is Il Duomo, here.
It is a beautiful, very elaborate cathedral.
It took 170 years to build,
but the first stone that was laid
was laid on Jacob's birthday.
Not his actual, not eight years ago,
but it was September 8th, which is Jacob's birthday.
So, Jacob, you share a birthday with this cathedral.
How cool is that?
(uplifting music)
♪ We can see the David ♪
(uplifting music)
- After I came here the first time,
I told Jessica that I, I studied art.
I loved art and art history,
and so I'd seen lots and lots of pictures of the David,
and it is a beautiful statue in print,
but seeing it in person, it's how it's meant to be seen,
and it is so amazing and so moving,
and there's just no way to express it any other way
than seeing the actual one.
Even seeing the copy of it
that they put where this used to be
doesn't do it justice at all.
There's something about it that's just amazing.
(uplifting music)
- I cannot believe that we just went from Rome to Florence
and back to Rome in one day and it's still light out.
I am exhausted.
I'm like,
so tired.
The day was great, but I'm definitely feeling tired,
and we still have to do dinner.
So I'm gonna power through it.
Let's go.
- All right, we are back at our hotel in Rome now,
and I've gotta say, that was an amazing day trip.
I really, really liked the tour.
I feel like with LivItaly Tours,
it doesn't feel like you're listening
to a history lecture the whole time.
It's more like an old friend of yours,
who moved away to another country, is meeting up with you
and showing you all around the city,
and today was a really good example of that.
Our tour guide was so cool.
She showed us all these cool things.
She was very knowledgeable,
but it was much more of like a back-and-forth,
more of a conversation, and she showed us stuff like,
"Oh, here's where I buy my fruit.
"Here's where I buy fish.
"You can only get it this time of year.
"Here's where I get this."
She actually lives there,
so it was really cool to have her showing us around
and just talking to us, having a meal with us.
It was awesome.
So, if you are gonna go to Italy,
I highly recommend that you book a tour,
at least one tour with LivItaly.
I think LivItaly really does a good job
with their motto, which is,
"Don't just visit Italy, live it."
Hi.
Let's talk about what we learned today.
(light guitar strumming)
We learned what Parker dreams about
and what I look like when I'm dreaming.
We learned how fun trash can be,
and finally, we learned all about Piazza della Signoria.
But it's the most famous piazza in the whole world,
so you probably already knew all about it.
Thanks for watching everybody.
We'll see you next time.
(giggling)
Put the spoon on the side though.
Lift the spoon up, there you go.
Now you can see.
Okay, you need about 92 more.
(Jessica chuckling)
A little more.
Perfect!
(Jessica laughing) - Okay.