Thursday, September 10, 2009

Italy Day 11 and 12: Florence

We left Venice on a Sunday morning and arrived in Florence a couple hours later. Our first reaction when we got to Florence...."Whoa...Cars". We had spent the last week in two cities that basically had none: the Cinque Terre and Venice. Back to reality with speeding cars and motorcycles everywhere in downtown Florence was a trip back to reality a bit.

We checked into our bed and breakfast after arriving. This proved to be the most disappointing place we stayed during the trip. It was a bit outside of the area we would have liked to be, and it proved to be a little less than ideal from a cleanliness perspective. This may have slightly impressioned our Florence experience, but we tried to make the best of it and get past it.

We had reservations at the Uffizi Gallery in the late afternoon and headed out to make them. The Uffizi had some reallly amazing pieces. I particularly enjoyed seeing a couple of the Da Vinci and Michaelangelo pieces. They definately stand out to me from the rest.

That evening we had a fantastic dinner....what may prove to be the best food of the trip. We ate at a small place on Piazza di Santa Croce. After a long day, it was just what the docter ordered. We had a long relaxing delicious Tuscan meal.

On our second day, we wanted to explore a bit more. We headed up to Piazza Michaelangelo and enjoyed some amazing views of the city. We then enjoyed a nice walk down by the river and across the Ponte Vecchio. We enjoy this part of the walk a lot.

We continued through town and winded up cruising through the Mercado Centrale, a busy gathering of tents with vendors selling all sorts of stuff. It was interesting but not quite our thing. We nevertheless took the opportunity to snag a few deals.

In the evening we headed across town and up to another great lookout spot...Fiesole. I really enjoyed the view of Florence and its surroundings from here. Just fantastic. We had dinner at a place overlooking the city. The view was fantastic, but the food was not up to par for some of the meals we have had.

We set our next sights on a more intimate feel of Tuscany...

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