Florence, Florence, Florence - you're my GIRL! My late CEO warned me about the dangers of missing out on this place as we were originally going to skip the stop all together. BUT THANK YOU,JESUS, FOR CEO'S THAT CARE ABOUT YOUR TRAVEL WELL BEING! Seriously, I'm forever thankful that he made me feel like I was going to be committing an unspeakable crime and nearly forcing me to agree that we'd make it to Florence - every single thing of amazement that he shared with me, was backed 10 fold when we actually made it to this magical city.
I seriously don't even know where to begin with this place. If you read our previous post about Venice, you're aware that we did the Italian portion of our Euro-Trip through GoAhead tours. So as we started in Venice and made our way south via Charter Bus, we were able to see the land transform into the beautiful and famous Italian Countryside that is Tuscany. Let me tell ya, it was just as gorgeous as you would imagine, if not more so! We made our entrance into the Capital and we instantly fell in love. Florence just has this peace about it that you can't ignore. From friendly people, dreamy and impressive architecture to wide open, vacant land, you almost feel "home" when you're exploring. Or at least we did. Here's some recaps from our 1.5 day visit to Florence.
The best way to describe the streets of Florence is, cozy. Even in the busiest areas of the city and at peak hours, we literally felt so comfortable, like this was our second home. The old brick that covers the roads and buildings throughout make this city so elegantly detailed, there truly aren't enough words to describe this place. As we were visiting with the tour group, our first day was mapped out in detail. We explored Piazza del Duomo, Ponte Vecchio, Learned how to spot a fake Gucci Leather purse from a mile away and of course made a pit stop at about 2 million gelato shops (who's counting). We had the option to visit the famous museums but neither Aaron or Myself are huge art history fans so we opted out of going to any of the galleries. However, you better believe we were quick to snap selfies with the Statue of David replica in the Piazza della Signoria because, Statue of DAVID!
We also made our way into a few churches to peep the scene. SHOUT OUT TO ALL OF OUR CATHOLIC FRIENDS! It's so bizarre to us how these places used to be filled with people as a place of worship and they've now turned into museums.
Some famous man riding some famous horse: Equestrian Monument of Cosimo I
The sculptures were a lot more vulgar than our 8th grade art classes led on.... is this even SFW?
"Hurry Slowly" - Giant Turtle Sculpture was in Florence with the Jan Fabre Exhibit while we were visiting. Super random but the story behind it was actually pretty cool. Go ahead, give it a Google search.
Uffizi Gallery
We lucked out and had the BEST tour leader with GoAhead, Emilio, and he guided Aaron and I to the central market. This place is AMAZING! We unfortunately were in such a daze and were truly on a mission to get our grub on, so we didn't really get to snag that many pictures for this post BUT trust us when we say, this place it worth a visit.
Stacked with shops ranging from fishmongers to fresh cheese, meat and homemade sauces/soaps/cleaners/etc. that was up for grabs, this is definitely a one stop modern shop to get your snack on and fill up your fridge at the same time. They even offer cooking classes here! Whether you're in a mood to devour food, looking for a fun girls night, need to stock your pantry/hotel mini fridge or just want to people watch, this place is a MUST! Icing on the cake? They have free Wi-Fi!
Pizza and Ice Cream, you can't go wrong. They're a dynamic duo like Batman and Robin, Pinky and The Brain, Tequila and Mistakes. So of course we couldn't pass up the opportunity to join in on a cooking class - once again, we used our handy dandy Chase Card and snagged a cooking class FOR FREE! Thinking this was going to be nearly identical to the nights when purchase that (delicious) garlic and herb crust from Trader Joe's and make our own pizza's "from scratch", we figured it would just be a fun little 15 minute class with lots of ice cream. Turns out, we were completely wrong. We ended up in this class for over 2 hours! But we're not complaining. We ended up meeting a family from Virginia that had just dropped the daughter off in Rome for her study abroad program, a British couple that was on their honeymoon, a couple from Spain that was traveling for fun, and few other people from Greece, Nothern Italy, and South Africa. Our Chef for the night truly belonged on TopChef and not some cooking class because he taught us more about the art of making pizza than any person could possible know and he was a true artist! Anyone that can take my holey, helpless, horse shaped crust and magically thicken it out and turn my horse into the perfect circle has got to have talent.
If you've never opted in for making some delicious local meals while on vacay, we highly encourage it! We've yet to experience a class where we were twiddling thumbs or awkwardly sitting at the end of the table by ourselves. Even something as 'simple' as making a pizza from scratch was ridiculously entertaining. I'm not sure if it was because of all the different backgrounds/cultures that were represented, the fact that half of us could not make a circular pizza crust to save our life, or maybe it was the gelato or the bottomless wine, regardless, we ended up having the best time! Not only did we learn all these fun facts about the art of pizza and gelato making, but we also learned so much about other peoples' traveling adventures, home life, and what brought them to Florence. It was truly an awesome experience.
All in all, we would absolutely do Florence again and spend at least 1 week there! To this day we're bummed we only had a couple days to explore this majestic place.
Here's a couple of tips we learned along the way:
Explore on foot as much as possible - there's so many cute alleyways that you don't want to miss out on!And plus, walking requires you to pay attention to your surroundings more than riding in a vehicle so you'll be able to snag some views that may have been otherwise missed.
If you plan on exploring the Tuscan countryside along with enjoying Florence, stay at least a week. That way you're not rushed through anything like we were.
When at a restaurant, eat everything on your plate. Aaron and I went for some pasta and had ordered an appetizer to start because naturally, our eyes were bigger than our stomachs - we ended up leaving one piece of meat on the plate, literally, and our waiter was truly offended and asked us why we didn't finish eating.
Don't be ashamed to use a map. These streets are so intertwined, it's easy to get lost. And then you end up sprinting to your cooking class and arriving all sweaty because you were too good for a map and thought you had a good sense of direction.
If you're into museums, plan ahead! You'll want to make sure 1] the museum is open (the have funky hours/days of closure) 2] you don't have to wait in line and 3] you're not overpaying (you can by the Firenze Card if you plan on hopping around - this will save you a few pennies)
Cash is king
