Florence Day 2

I had booked us a guide for our morning in Florence. I knew we would need timed tickets for the two museums we wanted to see, and I thought it would add to the experience to have a guide help us get from one to the other and also tell us a bit about the paintings when we were there. She also got us a family picture with David.

We got up nice and early, and Jeff caught a picture of the sunrise from our window.

Breakfast was included, so we went down to check out our options. It was a good spread, and the girls were especially taken with the mini-Nutella containers.

They had an egg station with eggs Benedict Florentine. What else could I eat for breakfast in Florence?

It was chilly and still a bit overcast, so most of us got our coats and waited to meet our guide in the lobby after breakfast.

After having such a great guide in Rome, we had high expectations. Unfortunately, our Florence guide was more focused on making sure we knew how smart and qualified she was then on whether or not we were actually enjoying ourselves or getting our questions answered. Still, it was good to have someone who knew where they were going, and she marched us over to the Uffizi Gallery, our first stop for the day. 

Like every other attraction we had been to in Italy, it was PACKED. There were several large groups with head phones on in order to hear their guides, which meant that they were extra oblivious to anyone around them. It was challenging.

Add to that the fact that our guide was mostly talking to hear herself talk, and we had to find out own way to appreciate the art. Jeff went into photo mode and focused on getting as many pictures as possible.

I had the girls stick close to me and gave a bit of a side tour so that they could actually learn somethings about the paintings. I'm not an art history expert by any means, but I know enough to talk about famous Renaissance paintings and the evolution of more three dimensional and realistic depictions of the human figure. 

Elena was mostly horrified that so many of the painted figures were naked and would occasionally shield or avert her eyes. We've come to the conclusion that she most likely won't be entering the art history or medical fields.

Jeff got some Medici pictures.

And we admired many pictures of Mary in various styles and by various famous artists.

Elena was curious about the heads sticking out of this circular painting by Michelangelo, and she asked the tour guide why they were there. The tour guide ignored her and kept talking about how significant it was that this was painted on wood. Finally, Jeff said, yes, but what about the heads, and she looked miffed and finally explained that it hung over the patron's bed to watch over him, which we all found to be super creepy. She looked at us like we were ignorant rubes. It was not a great fit of tour guide and tour group.

One of the paintings I found the most interesting was this unfinished one by Da Vinci. It was different from all the other ones we had been looking at. The rest of my family disagreed with me, but I still think it's cool.

The Uffizi is home to Botticelli's Birth of Venus, which was fun to see in person. 

But Vivian fell in love with his Primavera instead.

We got her her own copy for Christmas, and it is now proudly hanging in her room.

Jeff really liked the art they made with different colored rocks, carved to represent scenes and fit together.

There were also many impressive statues. Elena averted her eyes for most of them.

After the Uffizi, we walked to the Piazza della Signora. There are statues in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, but they are replicas of the originals, and we had an appointment to see original David later that morning, so our guide recommending having a quick coffee or hot chocolate in the piazza.

She took us to Rivoire and told us they are famous for their hot chocolate.

We opted to sit outside, but Jeff had to go inside and take pictures of the paintings on the walls as well.

The girls and I admired the shop windows.

When the hot chocolate came, it was, as promised, something special.

After our drinks, we stopped by a shop where they make paper with beautiful designs on it. I remember as a child having special cards with this technique lining the sides. I couldn't resist getting some notebooks for the girls.

We went by the Duomo again, and our guide kindly took a picture with all of us in it.

Then, we went to a place where they make art out of the different colored rocks. It was really cool that they had out samples of the different rocks that you were allowed to touch.

The finished works were lovely, but a bit heavy to carry home.

Finally, it was time to go see David.

Jeff took about 30 pictures of this statue, but I'm not going to include them all.  Suffice it to say, it's an impressive statue.  The museum itself though is quite small. Leading up to David are a series of statues by Michelangelo that are intentionally "incomplete". He said that he could see the form in the marble, and, as an artist, his job was simply to free it from the marble. These ones he left still breaking free, so that others could see the marble the way he did. We thought they were really cool, but the patrons who commissioned them were apparently not impressed and wanted to know why they hadn't been finished.

He also had a powerful pieta statue in the collection.

The building is called The Academy, and it houses an art school, so there is a room just full of busts and parts of sculptures for study. It was a cool way to display that many items.

We said goodbye to our guide, and I think we were all relieved. I appreciated her getting us around, but everything was so overcrowded that her lack of friendliness and flexibility really didn't help.

The hotel had made lunch reservations for us at a restaurant near where we would finish our tour. It was very pretty from the outside. They even had a giant stuffed bear.

The inside was lovely as well.

But it was full of people and loud, just like the museums we had spent the morning in, and I could see Jeff twitching. We had a quick family conference and decided we'd rather go back to the restaurant we'd had lunch at the day before, so we thanked the waiter and left.

On our route back, I saw we were going to be passing by the famous boar statue. The legend is that if you rub its nose, you'll come back to Florence, so Elena stepped up.

Then, we walked away from the crowds and towards the river. Leaving the other restaurant had been the right call. It was good to be in an open, less crowded space again, but we were disappointed to find that Dabarba was closed for lunch that day. Luckily, there was another restaurant with outdoor seating just down the road, so we ate there.

We had another lovely lunch, which was a great way to end our time in Florence. After lunch, we went back to the hotel, picked up our car, and drove back towards Rome and Lack Bracciano. It was a quick trip, but well worth it.

Florence Day 1

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.