Your Villa or Mine?

The train ride to Florence was magic. Gelato-coloured Tuscan villas surrounded by field after field of golden sunflowers. I wish I could have taken a photo but the train was moving too fast. A Tuscan villa is definitely going on the ‘Dream Homes I’ll Own When I’m Rich’ list.

Our first afternoon was pretty uneventful. We wandered around the streets, bought some souvenirs, went for a swim in the hostel disco pool and then had dinner on a festively lit street.

Thanks to Italy I am now not only addicted to bread, but also to Campari spritzers.

The hostel we were staying at charged 5.50eu for a towel which I found incredibly offensive. As an ill-conceived solution, I developed my own drying technique which involved having a shower, putting on a loose fitting dress, and drip drying on the sunny balcony. Is that gross? In the Italian heat I was dry in less than 5 minutes so you can’t argue that it didn’t work (I didn’t wear the dress for the rest of the day, of course).

The next day, after returning from Pisa (see below), we wandered down to the open air markets, where we bought a stupid amount of leather goods. Florence is well-known for its leather, FYI. I bought some handmade leather gloves for the English winter - check that off the shopping list. Apart from that the market was quite disappointing, mostly just tourist junk. I only found out where all the vintage places were after I left...sad face.

Armed with our purchases, we went back to the hostel, refreshed, and caught the bus to the Piazza Michelangelo. Being on the bus was like being on the Knight Bus in Harry Potter. It was dark, we were going up a winding road, and the driver was crazy. I swear mail boxes and street signs were jumping out of the way as we zoomed along.

The Piazza features a giant replica of Michelangelo's David and offers a beautiful view of Florence. We admired the city for awhile then decided to climb down (massive trek, by the way) and visit the nearby open bar our taxi driver had told us about.

(Sorry about the quality, I’m yet to master night-time photography...well any kind of photography really).

The open bar (“Easy Living”) was crazy cool – just a bar and then tables all along the river. Unfortunately it was super expensive and we were super hungry so we just ordered one drink (Campari spritz again, delish) and people watched for half an hour.

Our tummys started grumbling so we went in search of a meal. We weren’t very successful. We got sucked in by a cute bartender to a place that didn’t offer food. But by ordering a drink we could help ourselves to the little cheese platters and what not they had set up. So we had some wine and sat on the back of a truck (yes...) and stuffed salami down our throats like our lives depended on it.

We stupidly walked home which took an age and a half, or at least felt that long when you had a bladder full of red wine and Campari. There is never a McDonalds when you need one, is there?

The next day we saw the Duomo (stunningly beautiful) and then navigated our way to Galleria Academia, to see David. The line was long but it moved quickly, surprisingly. We weren’t allowed to take pictures of Davey boy but he truly was a work of art – I kept expecting him to step off his pedestal and start running around, impressed with his limbs, Avatar style. There was ANOTHER replica of him outside Uffizi, which we sadly didn’t make it into – the line didn’t move quite as fast there. Never mind, just another reason to come back to Italy.

After Academia we decided to walk back to the Piazza and take in the view in the daylight. The walk up was still a massive trek but slightly more enjoyable when we could see what we were doing.

The view is a ‘postcard view’ if ever I’ve seen one, and it’s too hard to pick the best photo, so I’ll put them all on Facebook (at some point) if you want to see more.

We had a quick lunch at the Piazza, then walked through a cute little village to get back to the river, where we came across the ‘Ponte Vecchio’ bridge, known for its “jewellers, art dealers and souvenir sellers”.

And that’s pretty much it. From the Ponte Vecchio, we walked back to our hostel, collected our bags and headed to the train station. Florence, check.

x
Karen

PS actually that’s a lie, somewhere between the Ponte Vecchio and the hostel I managed to buy a $220 pair of boots...oops. But they’re handmade, in Italy, and I’m living in an English winter soon...totally justifiable, right?
PPS, how cool is Holly? x