I remember the first time I went to Florence…it was summer 2004, and my friends and I were in the middle of a 6-week study abroad course in London. We took a four day weekend trip to Italy, flying into Rome, doing the whole stay in hostels thing (which looking back now, GAH-ROSS). We were taking a train to Florence, then to Milan, but once we got to the train station in Rome, we couldn’t find Florence on the schedules. We searched and searched, and panicked because the last train heading out to any city starting with an “F” was about to leave. We said eff it, let’s just get on this train and hope it ends up in Florence. We ended up in…
Firenze. Which is Italian for Florence. Oh, and we were idiots.
We got there, immediately boarded a bus to who knows where, forties of Heineken in our hands (yes, we were those Americans), and got off at our stop, in the middle of nowhere. No street lamps, pure darkness. We linked hands and attempted to walk up the hill to our hostel but completely chickened out. So we hightailed back into town, dropped big bucks on a Holiday Inn, and packed ourselves into our wonderfully comfortable hotel room.
The breakfast was pretty yummy too.
But this time was a 180 degree experience. First of all, I knew which train to take this time, so a million bonus points to me. And we got there around 10 AM and made a day of it. We only went to to the Uffizi and the Galleria dell’Accademia at the perfect times with light tourist traffic (and I bought tickets online for the Uffizi so we didn’t have to wait in the line, which was still ridiculous in October), so we spent the rest of the day walking. And walking. And walking some more.
Florence isn’t my favorite city in Italy. It’s really tourist-dense, even at the end of October (worse in summer), and very English-speaking, which takes away some of the magic of being in Italy. It’s still unbelievably gorgeous and history-rich, so I can’t hate on Firenze too much. It really is worth it to visit.
Tip: there was a crazy line waiting to climb to the top of the Duomo at 10 AM on a Tuesday in October. Imagine it in summer. We took the tip from our guidebook to climb to the top of the Campanile instead as there’s a way shorter line and pretty much the same view. I think the Duomo is 467 steps, the Campanile is 414 steps. Pretty even. It’s 10 euros, and you need stamina. We were huffing it up, and I think my legs almost gave out about 4 times, but it was completely worth it.
I attempted to take some food recommendations into account, but because October was insane, I added the recs (to the itinerary I posted earlier) but printed out an earlier version that didn’t have those recs on them. Good job Victoria.
We did take a recommendation from our Fodor’s Italy guide book and ate at La Casalinga in the Santo Spirito area. It ended up being the meal that lasted us into the following morning because we’re American and we totally went overboard. Even our waiter’s eyes bulged as we kept rattling off menu items to order.
I think the best and only way to see a city is to wander through it. I made sure that as we wandered, we would stumble upon the major sites. But people watching, taking our time, connecting with each other and the city, it’s an amazing feeling. Enjoy the pictures.
While at the Galleria dell’Academie, wandering around and around the David statue, we accidentally stumbled upon the greatest Long Island stereotypes ever. Two couples had hired a tour guide to take them around Florence, and as they were viewing the David, one of the women said, “I can’t believe it’s still standing after all (think awl) this time. I can’t believe it hasn’t fallen (think fawlen) over!” Her husband replied, “Babe, it’s physics, see the stump, it balances it so that it doesn’t fall (think fawl) over.”
So that was amusing obviously because accents are great. However, the best part was them viewing a painting where the main figure was holding a picture of Moses. But they misheard the guide and thought the painting was of Moses. This is the conversation that ensued:
Man (imagine with thick accent and spoken fast): “So uh, that’s not Moses?”
Tour guide: “No, no, see, he’s holding a picture of Moses.”
Man: “So that’s not Moses saying, ‘Uh hey, let my people go’?”
No sir, considering Moses wasn’t riding a horse while he gave that speech and wasn’t alive during the 1400s.
But even better was the other couple’s reactions to pre-Renaissance art. He said, “Yea, I like Renaissance art better. They painted a lot better then.”
Yes, that’s why it’s called the Renaissance sir. Americans always come through when you need them to.
The last two days were probably my favorite days ever so stay tuned.
♥, VB
From Peaches to Beaches 
Beautiful Photography
Thank you!