Florence is beautiful...

Anytime I’ve talked to other travelers, and told them that I was going to Florence, I heard the same thing, “Florence is beautiful,” often said drawing out the first syllable, “beeeeeeeeutiful.” And I have to agree. I’ve enjoyed my time here in Florence, but Venice is still my favorite place.

I arrived to the Firenze Santa Maria Novella train station and went to find a cab to my hotel. The cab line stretched on for what looked like a mile, but it moved quite quickly and in about 10 minutes, I was on my way to my hotel. Italian people are crazy. They drive like maniacs, and the people are worse, they just cross the street at whatever point they want. You couldn’t pay me to drive in Italy.

Anyway, I made it to my hotel, which wasn’t actually a hotel, but a floor of a building. I pressed the bell, and was buzzed up to the place. I took the world’s smallest elevator to the third floor, and when I got off, there are 3 doors, none of which are labeled, and one door has people “talking” behind it. I put talking in quotes, because it sounded to my MN ears like they were having a vicious argument, but I took a chance and knocked on that door. They opened it and were instantly welcoming. I realized that the “argument” I was hearing was just them speaking Italian! It’s a passionate language.

While I was checking in, the guy who owns the place says to me “Since you are staying here for 4 nights, we have a small 25 meter apartment, that we thought you might like. It has a microscopic kitchen, and is very quiet. So I agreed, it was the same price, so why not. He brought me around the corner to the apartment and handed me 4 keys. It takes 4 keys to get into this place! The first key is the street door, which lets you into an entry, then the second key opens a gate, to let you into the actual building. The third key opens the door to a vestibule with 3 more doors, and the last one is to my actual apartment. I felt very safe. I decided to take the apartment, and he left. I looked around. FIrst, “microscopic” is the perfect adjective for this kitchen. It had a fridge, a kettle, a 2 burner hot plate, and the world’s tiniest oven. Oh, and a sink. I was glad to have the fridge, so I could have cold water at all times. This place had the biggest bathroom of any place I’ve stayed thus far. It was more than 2 steps from the door to the toilet! But still a tiny shower.

Anyway, after taking some time to use the WiFi in the room, I went exploring. I wanted to do a red bus sightseeing tour like I’ve done in other cities, and one of the stops was just a few blocks from my apartment! So I walk to the stop and wait, and wait, and wait, and wait but the bus never comes. Finally I give up and start wandering back to my hotel. I stopped at a little grocery/convenience store and got some food for a picnic in my room. I was feeling very tired. But even though I felt tired, I found I had a hard time falling asleep. I had developed a cough. Like a hacking, I’m going to die from this cough. I went over options in my head, like maybe I could somehow switch my flight to fly home from Spain when I’m done seeing Sarah, instead of Milan almost a week later. But eventually I did fall asleep, but not very well.

The next day, Thursday, I awoke still having the cough, and not feeling great. But I’m in Florence to see Florence, so let’s explore. I had booked an entrance to the Uffizi Gallery the night before, so I had one thing scheduled. I first went to scope out the Ponte Vecchio. The bridge that is essentially The Symbol of Florence. The bridge is known because of it’s shops that hang over the river from the bridge. I learned later that the only reason he bridge still stands is because a higher ranking German soldier loved art, and defied orders to blow up the bridge in WWII. All along the bridge are jewelry and gold shops. I saw SO MANY pretty things that I wanted, but my main thought was “where would I wear that?” So I didn’t buy anything.

It came time for my entrance to the Uffizi Gallery. Now when I tour a museum, I try to look at everything, but I only stop and examine on items that catch my attention. The Uffizi is a huge museum, with paintings by Botticelli, Michelangelo, DaVinci, among others. The most famous work is The Birth of Venus, which is stunning in person. Now I really enjoyed my visit to the Uffizi, but the first thing you do upon entering the museum is climb 4 long flights of stairs! Remember I’m suffering from a “kill me now” cough, and these stairs were almost my undoing. I’m not saying that I don’t huff and puff up stairs on a normal day (because I do), but this day was especially bad.

My bought a combo ticket to the Uffizi which gave me access to the Pitti Palace and Boboli Gardens. I walked across the Ponte Vecchio again and made my way to the Pitti Palace, the Palace that was built by the Pitti family until they ran out of money and the Medici family took it over. Now the Medicis had a passageway built across the Ponte Vecchio to the Uffizi which at that point was the government building. So they wouldn’t have to walk with the commoners.

I wasn’t feeling well, so I didn’t tour the palace, but went to the gardens, hoping to find a chill garden I could relax in. NOPE! Instead I find a small mountain (or hill as they call it) and a manicured garden that you can’t go on the grass. It’s full of amazing sculptures, but I’m exhausted and was not planning on mountaineering today.

I returned to my hotel, and eventually decided I was going to splurge and find a steak for dinner. Florence is known for its steak. I found a restaurant just a couple of blocks from my hotel and order the Florentine Steak. They sell it by weight and the smallest is 500g. I knew I wouldn’t be able to eat it all, but I wanted me some BEEF! As I’m sitting waiting with my beer, a group of people come walking in, and walking in, they just keep coming, and they’re wearing blue EF Tours backpacks! It was a student tour group! So next summer when I’m in Florence with my students, I very well may be eating at that restaurant again! Well my steak came and it was delicious. And I was starting to feel a bit better.

Friday morning I toured the Monastery of San Marco. In the monastery are frescoes all done by one of my favorite painters Fra Angelico. It’s so moving to be able to see the art in the place where it was meant to be seen. Sure paintings in a museum are beautiful, but to see a piece of art in the space it was designed for...astounding. That afternoon I finally got my tour of the city. I found a tour company doing tours on a golf cart. After my tour I called home. I talked to Grandma, let her know I was still alive, and then I called Mom & Dad. We talked for almost an hour. By the time I was done making all my calls, it was time to find dinner again, and thought “When in Rome...or rather Florence…” and went for another steak. More deliciousness.

Saturday morning I booked a class on how to make pasta. It made my way to the address that my booking gave me, and found the restaurant that would host the class. All total there were 7 of us making pasta. Rhine and Elizabeth from San Diego, JoAnne, her son and daughter, Gerald and Nicole, and Nicole’s son Joe, and me. Our teacher Alessandra did a great job of making the class fun, and before long all of us were joking with each other. We learned how to make Tagliatelle (which just means cut pasta), Raviloi, and Cappelletti, which are supposed to look like the Pope’s hat. While making the pasta, Alessandra offered us a glass of wine if we wanted one. Well we were working hard, so most of us took the glass. I’m not normally a red wine drinker, but this was delicious.

After we finished making all of our pastas, and cleaned up, we moved to a different table, to have more wine, and to eat the pasta we had just made. I didn’t care for the filling in the Cappelletti, but the ravioli were AMAZING!  I’m thinking of doing a community ed class on how to make pasta.

Well by this time I had had 3 glasses on wine, so I carefully made my way back to my hotel, for a little pasta and wine nap. After resting, I went out to do some more shopping. I found a really pretty Italian leather purse. It was pretty...and teal...and 150 euro. I didn’t get it. But I was really tempted. While I out shopping I decided to get some gelato. Little did I know that the place I stopped made the BIGGEST GELATO CONES EVER! So by the time the finished it, I wasn’t hungry for dinner, so I wandered the streets of Florence for a bit longer, and returned to my apartment.

Overall, I’d say I like Florence. I don’t LOVE it, but I will definitely come back. But for now, I am on my way to Rome, to do as the Romans do. And do some laundry. I’ve booked my first ever AirB&B, so I have a place to do laundry. Then Friday I fly to Spain to spend a week with my BFF Sarah and her Nico.

Well, until next time Ciao Bella!