Since we went all the way to Italy, I couldn't resist a side trip to Florence which is about a three hour drive from Rome. It's one of my favorite cities, and I wanted to show it off to Jeff and the girls. We had a smooth drive up, and we got there around lunch time. Our room at the hotel wasn't ready yet, so we dropped off the car and the bags and asked for a recommendation for a nearby restaurant. The concierge made a reservation for us down the road at a restaurant called Dabarba. We got a quick view of the Arno river as we walked along.
Dabarba means from the beard, and the owner did indeed have a beard which he told us he used to dye blue and have fun being called Bluebeard. He is Italian and his wife is Norwegian. They both spoke fluent English and were very welcoming. It was a really cute place and the only customers were us and another lady, so we got lots of personal attention.
We had some fun taking photos while we waited for the food to come. We let the girls take a picture of us.
Then Viv did some posing,
which Elena couldn't resist mocking.
The time passed quickly.
We started with the cheese and meat appetizer, yum!
Elena had ordered the pesto pasta. It was supposed to come with mixed in burrata, but she wasn't sure she would like it, so the owner kindly served it with the cheese on the side.
After trying a little bit with the cheese, she declared it delicious and asked us to mix the rest in. Vivi got the same thing with the cheese on top.
Jeff went straight for the truffle pasta.
I wanted to try a local kind of stuffed pasta that can be filled with cheese and pears. I love salty sweet combos, and it was delicious.
I asked the owner for a wine pairing recommendation, and he offered up a delicious Vernaccia de San Gimignano.
Jeff stuck with classic Chianti.
We were loving the food and wine and already thinking of declaring this one of our best meals ever when the rain began to pick up. It started raining harder and harder, and then the wind picked up, and it was literally raining sideways. From our seats, we could see the poor tourists trying to find shelter.
The owner ended up having to close the door, because the wind was blowing the rain in. It was crazy, but it made us feel extra cozy to be inside. For the meat course Jeff and Vivian had ordered a steak to split.
Florence is famous for it's big hunks of steak, and while those are delicious, they tend to be fatty. This was a perfect cut, perfectly cooked. The potatoes were also absolutely delicious. We tore through the first plate, and since it was still pouring, we decided to order another one.
We ended up spending three hours at the restaurant, and it definitively made the ranks of one of our best meals ever. The owner insisted we had to try dessert and gave us complimentary glasses of limoncello. We ordered a tiramisu to go with them. Everything was fabulous.
By the end, we were completely stuffed. It had stopped raining, so we figured the best plan was to walk it off. We thanked our hosts profusely and headed down the Arno towards the Ponte Vecchio.
Jeff took many photos of the little details as we walked along.
Eventually, we made it to the center of the bridge.
The bridge is lined with jewelry shops, as it has been since the 16th century. We had a lot of fun window shopping, but couldn't resist buying one of the city's specialities, cameo jewelry.
We went to a shop that works with artisans that produce cameos by hand, and they have a display shell to show the process.
We ended up picking a pair of beautiful flower cameos, which are technically Vivian's, but which I have worn and gotten compliments on.
After more walking around the old city, the girls requested gelato. Jeff and I were so full we couldn't even imagine eating, but they obviously had room for dessert. The gelato displays in Italy are really fantastic. You can just look at the fruits to figure out what flavor you're getting.
With the girls silenced by their gelatos, we wandered around the narrow, medieval streets. There are lots of cute shops and some fun, more modern graffiti.
Eventually, we popped out at Piazza della Signora and got the giggles while trying to take a picture with the Palazzo Vecchio and without getting gelato on anyone.
We admired the replica statues around the piazza. We had tickets to see the originals the next day.
We continued our walk until we got to the Piazza del Duomo. While it's a relatively open space among all the narrow streets, it's not that big, and it's hard to get enough distance to capture the enormous church.
It was also swarming with people, and the line to get in stretched all around the building and probably took at least an hour to get through, so we opted not to go in. I have never seen so many people in Florence, and October is supposed to be off season. Both our tour guides in Rome and Florence agreed that the number of tourists was unprecedented. They put it down to a post-covid travel surge, but it definitely made sightseeing less fun.
Luckily, the hotel was a win. I had saved up our points to get us two rooms for free at the Westin Excelsior, and I also put in an upgrade request which they honored with a suite for me and Jeff.
The girls had a very nice room across the hall from ours, but they liked our sofa. We also had big windows which we opened and peaked out of.
The entire hotel is really beautiful. The lobby makes a great first impression.
There are beautiful paintings and ornamentations all over the hotel. We were especially impressed with the large painting of the city over the elevators.
Viv and I had fun taking the stairs too. Each landing has antiques, and there are paintings all along the walls.
Our original plan for dinner was to eat at the hotel's rooftop restaurant. The picture showed open air dining with a view of the river, but when we got there, we were led to an indoor dining space with very low lighting and black table cloths. We were given a seat by the window, but it was dark and rainy, so you couldn't see anything. We took a look at the menus, holding them up to the small light source on the table and saw that pasta dishes were 40 euros and had all kinds of "fancy" toppings. It's not our style to walk out of a restaurant, but this really did not seem like the right fit for us, so we apologized and left.
We went back to our friend the concierge and asked him to recommend somewhere close that had simple pasta and pizza. He readily obliged and recommended Industria, a restaurant right around the corner, which did indeed have an industrial bent to its decor.
As I had predicted, everyone was tired, but pasta bolognese and pizzas topped with fresh ingredients were exactly what we needed.
Our first day in Florence was a success.
