Physically, I’m back in Arizona and at my day job, but mentally, I’m still in Italy.
After Kelly and I wrapped up the Rome portion of our two-week trip, we hopped onto a high-speed Frecciarossa train bound for our next destination: Florence!
This is a bit of a longer post, because Kelly and I ended up spending the bulk of our Italy trip in Florence (locally known as Firenze). We originally booked our hostel for two nights, and then ended up extending it by two more nights.
We ended up really loving Florence.
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We arrived in Florence during the late afternoon, took a bus to our hostel and unloaded our stuff in our room.
A quick note: The fare checkers are no joke in Florence! We’d bought the 10-trip carnet, which gives 10 paper passes to be used on buses and trams in all the cities throughout Tuscany, and I’ve traveled throughout Europe enough to know to always validate the paper tickets. Shortly after we punched our passes, the fare checkers boarded our bus and asked for our ticket. Always validate your passes!
A second quick note: Our hostel this time was 7 Santi, and I loved it. It’s a converted convent, and it’s way, way cool. It wasn’t as social as Generator Rome, but it had the nicest amenities of any of the hostels we stayed at on our trip. The hostel itself was quiet, and it was located in a quiet part of town. However, it was definitely a ways away from a lot of Florence’s attractions, so we did have to do a good amount of walking. This didn’t bother us at all, but something to keep in mind.
After unloading our bags, we headed our for dinner. Kelly chose Taverna Dei Servi Firenze, which was incredible. The two of us both split some cheese, and each had a pasta dish.
Seemingly picking up right where we left off in Rome, we were greeted by more International Women’s Day protests.
The march went right down the street and ran parallel to the outdoor patio we were dining on, so we were able to cheer on the protestors while sipping our red wine.
After dinner we walked around for a good bit of bar hopping.
We met up with Ben (a friend we’d met at the pub crawl in Rome) who’d also decided to make Florence his next stop on his trip.
The three of us met at Mayday Club, where we sipped on cocktails surrounded by vintage radios, transceivers and telegraphs.
Afterward, we wandered over to Giulio Bistrot for more drinks.
How’d we end up at Giulio Bistrot? Funny story. Giulio Bistrot is a little nondescript restaurant on Piazza del Duomo, which is the road that surrounds the mammoth Duomo di Firenze (Florence Cathedral), formerly known as the Santa Maria del Fiore church.
We’d walked past it on our way to dinner, and briefly noticed some kind of a snarky sign inside that caught our attention.
Then, when we were walking in that area again, we decided to make a stop at the bar with the snarky sign…
…which ended up being a very popular bar for U.S. college students. It even had a Michigan State University pennant hanging that Kelly (an MSU alumna) signed.
We were seated next to an adorable couple who just got engaged in Venice (one of which was also an MSU alumnus), and then the shots started.
After our shots Kelly, Ben and I decided to head out to a few more bars. I don’t remember which ones we went to, but we wandered around for a bit of bar hopping here and there until we called it a night and went our separate ways so Kelly and I could head back to our hostel.
Kelly and I were up early the next morning for our first booked visit: Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze, which is one of Florence’s art museums — specifically, the one that houses Michelangelo’s “David.”
We stopped for coffee and pastries on the way, and then stumbled upon a farmers market set up in a square along our route.
We looked at the selection of jewelry, trinkets, clothing and food (and Kelly may have bought a bag of cheese) before continuing on to the museum for our timed entry.
We entered and… BAM. Statue of David!
Yes, I cried again. It is truly an impressive piece of art.
While Michelangelo’s “David” is obviously the start of the Accademia Gallery, don’t miss the rest of the museum. One of my favorite exhibits was the hallway leading up to “David,” which was lined by several unfinished works by Michelangelo.
After our museum visit, the two of us grabbed some gelato, and then went back to the farmers market to explore before heading back to the Florence Cathedral to admire it in the daylight.
Unfortunately, given that it was a Sunday, the interior of the church was closed to the public.
However, we were completely satisfied just walking around the building and admiring its breathtaking exterior.
From there it was onto our next booking…
Pasta class!
One of Kelly’s must-do’s during our time in Tuscany was an Italian pasta cooking class. She’d booked us a lesson through Brunelleschi held at a restaurant (De’Bardi Ristorante Enoteca Buchetta del Vino) alongside the Arno River.
(We booked through Get Your Guide. Definitely recommend!)
We arrived, washed our hands, donned our aprons, took up our spots at the butcher block table, grabbed some Chianti (unlimited and included in the price of our class!) and got to work.
At first, I was a little worried about the sheer number of students. Kelly and I were the only two students in our glass modeling class in Venice, so I was a bit concerned that 20 students would be way too many to have an “authentic” experirence.
However, that wasn’t the case at all. Our instructor, Lorenzo, was absolutely fantastic. He demonstrated everything for our class (about 20 people) and walked around the room to help us all out one-on-one as we learned how to make our pasta dough, knead it, prep it, and hand-stretch it into pasta.
We made three different types of pasta: tortellini, ravioli and pappardelle.
After we made our pasta, Lorenzo collected our work, then collectively cooked the pasta we made, coupled it with the sauces he’d made for us, and distributed it to the class as a whole.
My favorite of the three was definitely the tortellini, which was served with a simple brown butter sage sauce.
(If you’re interested, the recipes for the pastas and sauces we made are hosted here.)
Kelly and I made quick friends with Kei, Liz and Josey on our end of the table.
After our pasta class, Kelly and I ventured up to Piazzale Michelangelo to take some photos and catch the sunset.
As soon as we snapped our photos and watched the sun set, the raindrops started smattering against our heads.
Kelly and I hopped onto a bus back to our hotel, where we called it an early night because…
…it was laundry time!
Laundry time ended up being a bit of a fiasco. We’d washed all of our clothes, but then the dryer just… didn’t dry. We tried to run our clothes through a second time, but then the hostel’s power went out. We switched our clothes to a different dryer and ran our clothes through a third time, but everything was still somewhat damp when — three hours later — we were exhausted and ready for bed.
We ended up hanging clothes across every surface of our hostel room, and then passing out.
Kelly and I woke up the next morning for a day trip to Pisa.
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On our way to the train station, we stopped at Florence’s most famous sandwich shop — All’antico Vinaio — for sandwiches.
I opted for the “vegetariana 2,” which, I can safely say, is the best sandwich I have ever had in my life.
This sandwich — a spread of mild, creamy stracciatella, a smear of salty pistachio butter, a smattering of bright sun-dried tomatoes and a pile of fragrant fresh basil leaves, crammed between two pieces of warm Tuscan Schiacciata bread with a crusty exterior and a cheese-infused, pillowy, airy interior?
I will dream about this sandwich, I kid you not.
It was so good, Kelly and I actually went back and ordered it a second time before we left Florence.
All’Antico Vinaio is worth every bit of hype it gets.
Once we returned from our day trip to Pisa, Kelly and I left the train station and went straight to dinner.
We opted for a restaurant called Osteria Cancello dei Macci, where I had the best pasta meal of my entire trip.
I had a paccheri pasta with shrimp, tomatoes, cheese and a pink sauce.
It was incredible.
Kelly had a truffle pasta (which was delightful as well) and the two of us also shared a bottle of wine, a panna cotta dessert, and (of course) limoncello.
After dinner, we made our way back to our hostel to get a good night’s sleep for our final full day in Florence.
Both of us really wanted to visit the Uffizi Gallery during our time in Florence. It’d been closed on Monday (hence our day-trip to Pisa), and we knew it was our top priority on Tuesday.
We woke up Tuesday morning, grabbed sandwiches at Pino’s, and then bought our day-of tickets at the Uffizi.
We ended up spending our entire late morning/early afternoon wandering around the exhibits.
I mentioned it during my post about Rome, but one of my biggest regrets is that we didn’t give ourselves enough time to explore the Vatican Museums.
We didn’t want to make that same mistake again, so we made sure we had a ton of time at the Uffizi.
We’d planned in advance by making a list of everything we wanted to see in order of exhibition and downloading a map of the Uffizi to our phone.
The Uffizi’s layout ended up being easy enough to navigate without our pre-drafted list of must-sees, but there was very little cellphone service in the Uffizi so I’m glad we had downloaded maps to our phones in advance, especially as there weren’t physical maps available to grab.
While we both enjoyed a lot of the more famous Renaissance pieces — including the Sandro Botticelli exhibit, some more Michelangelo paintings, Rembrandt’s Portrait, and Leonardo da Vinci’s work — we both really ended up enjoying a few of the lesser-known exhibits, like the self-portraits collection and the exhibit of Gerard van Honthorst’s work.
I didn’t take too many photos in the Uffizi because, well, those photos exist on the internet, and I was way too absorbed in the art.
After several hours in the Uffizi, Kelly and I stumbled back out into the daylight and immediately hoofed it to a nearby restaurant, La Buchetta, for cheese and wine.
From there, we spent the next several hours shopping and stopping at the occasional bar for an Aperol Spritz (or some variation).
We did a bit of shopping as well (I bought a rolling pin for pasta at a local mesticheria, and some magnets to bring home; Kelly bought a jacket), took a gelato break, and made it a point to check out a wine window, of course!
If you’re not familiar with Florence’s wine windows, they’re an absolute blast. They were originally created during the plague, but brought back as a bit of a novelty tourist attraction.
Most of them are impossible to miss as restaurants will wave you toward them, but they’re still pretty quirky.
As soon as it was socially acceptable (about 8 p.m.), the two of us went out for one last dinner in Florence, at a restaurant called Cacio e Pepe.
I had (of course) yet another plate of Cacio e Pepe.
From there, we headed back to our hotel so we could wake up early for the next part of our journey.
We stopped once again for sandwiches from All’Antico Vinaio, and then boarded our train back to Venice.
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Both of us really loved Florence. I forgot how big of a study abroad city it is (there were a TON of U.S. college students — some a little more inconspicuous than others) but we absolutely loved the Tuscan architecture, the incredible art and the overall laid-back and relaxing vibes of the city.
Florence hadn’t been on my “must-go” list until Kelly suggested it, and I’m glad she did, because I would absolutely love to go back and explore a bit more of Tuscany outside of Florence (and Pisa).
