Florence, Italy
/(May 18th - May 20th, 2015)
When we arrived in Florence we decided to walk to our Airbnb apartment. The walk always seems short on Google Maps but is always longer once we remember how heavy our backpacks are! Once we settled into our apartment we set off to see some sights before the sun went down. We walked through Piazza della Signoria, caught the sunset on the Ponte Vecchio, and finished the evening with dinner at Vini e Vecchi Sapori. We shared a caprese salad, Allen had pasta with a duck ragu, and I had pasta with zucchini flowers and saffron. We headed to bed pretty early the first night as we had to be up and ready at 6am for our hot air balloon ride!
A hot air balloon ride had been on my bucket list for several years. We attempted one when we were traveling in New Zealand, but it ended up getting cancelled due to the weather. We decided that a hot air balloon ride over Tuscany wouldn't be a horrible plan b, so we crossed our fingers that the weather would cooperate this time around...and it did! We were picked up bright and early at 6am, driven out to the launch site, and waited for the balloons to finish prepping. There were three balloons that flew that day and each balloon carried seven people (including the pilot). We were talking to another couple from the US Virgin Islands about how nervous Allen was (due to his fear of heights) and how one of them hated flying and the other was also afraid of heights. Luckily, we had a smooth ride and no one fell out (although one of the our fellow balloons had to do an early emergency landing on the edge of a hill) :) We flew over the Chianti region as the sun came up for a little over an hour. Since hot air balloons cannot steer and are 100% dependent on the wind speed and direction, we ended up landing in someone's field. Our pilot said he had never flown as far as we did that day and he had never landed where we did. The crew followed us to the field and set up a delicious Prosecco breakfast with charcuterie, fruit, sheep and goat cheeses, and olive oil all from their family farm. Everything was delicious and it was a perfect way to end the fun morning and a fantastic way to start our first full day in Florence.
After the hot air balloon ride, we went back to our apartment for a quick nap and then set out on foot to explore Florence. We started our walk with some gelato and then headed up to Piazzale Michaelangelo to get some great views of the city. We wandered to the Basilica of Santa Croce and then stopped by the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore (Il Duomo di Firenze). We were completely in awe of the elaborate facade and large dome that we could see from Piazzale Michaelangelo. We read up on the cathedral and evidently the interior is nothing compared to the outside, so we opted to not wait in the very long line to tour the cathedral. By this point in the day, we had worked up quite the appetite so we went to the highest rated place on Trip Advisor (which was literally steps from the front door of our apartment building) called All'Antico Vinaio. At all times of the day there is a line outside the sandwich shop so we figured it was worth a try. When we found yet another line at 2:30pm in the afternoon, we noticed that there were two shops/restaurants right across the street with the same name, but no line. I walked over to the other sandwich shop to ask what the difference was and the guy said there wasn't one (other than one is only for to go orders and the other is for sit down and to go orders). We never figured out why people wait in line, but we quickly went across the street and got our food within minutes. Allen had a spicy salami sandwich and I had a ham sandwich. They were both amazing and we quickly understood why it was rated so highly. In fact we loved our food so much that we decided to make dinner reservations for the restaurant next door for dinner that night :)
After lunch we headed back to the Duomo and decided to climb Giotto's Bell Tower right next to the Duomo. We got some fantastic views of the city and the cathedral's dome. Naturally, after climbing the tower, we felt like gelato was an appropriate reward so we went to an organic gelateria right by the Duomo. They had some very interesting flavors (like fresh eggs and white wine and red wine sorbet), but I went with strawberry and pink grapefruit and Allen tried the flavor of the week (milk and pear) and chocolate hazelnut.
We wandered around the city for a couple more hours before returning back to our apartment to get ready for dinner. We made the long trek across the street to Osteria All'Antico Vinaio. We enjoyed some wine, and amazing charcuterie and cheese plate with their homemade apricot marmalade, homemade pasta with pesto, and tagliatelle steak with a balsamic reduction. As if two helpings of gelato wasn't enough, we finished with a chocolate tart. Everything was absolutely amazing and we left very happy and full.
After dinner, we met up with two great friends who were visiting Florence as well. We walked to their hotel and enjoyed a drink on the rooftop deck. We had amazing views of the Duomo, bell tower, and Palazzo Vecchio and talked the night away. It was so nice to catch up and share stories with people who have been and experienced most of the same things and to laugh about all the quirky things we've come to learn about Europe.
The next morning we set out early to visit Accademia to see the Statue of David. The statue was much larger than we thought it would be and was definitely impressive. Allen was convinced that David had rolled his ankle as his left ankle looked similar to Allen's after one of his many basketball injuries. We quickly looked around at some of the other statues and paintings at the museum and then met up with our friends again for breakfast. Before heading to the train station we walked around a bit and took a few photos trying to use up every minute we had left in Florence.
It was a quick stop, but we had memorable food, saw some fantastic sites, caught up with great friends and checked something off our bucket list. Next up...Venice!
