SOCIAL MEDIA

Monday, September 3, 2018

Florence and Tuscany

Good Morning! Thanks for stopping by our Italy recap. If you are just now joining us you can see our other Italy posts here:

Pompeii
Capri
Rome
Easter at the Vatican

And our posts about how we travel inexpensively here:
Part 1
Part 2

Anyway, onto Florence!

So we got to Florence, and to be honest we were very underwhelmed. We had been told that Florence would be our favorite city by far and that it was much prettier and cleaner than Rome, but we actually found the opposite to be true. In fact, it was the dirtiest city we had visited by far. Has anyone else had a similar experience to this?? I'm hoping this was just a fluke. 

We also made the mistake of staying in a hotel about a 15 minute taxi ride away from city, making it more difficult to get to everything we wanted to do. By the time we checked into our hotel and made our way into downtown Florence for dinner, most of the things we wanted to see and do were closed (I'm sure it doesn't help that it was evening on Easter Sunday). We decided to chalk it up to some bad luck and maybe things were out of whack because it was a holiday. The next time we visit though, we will DEFINITELY stay in a hotel or a VRBO that it walking distance from everything we want to do. We still walked around and tried to make the best of it, even though everything was closed. 



The beautiful ornate doors to Il Duomo.

These are the beautiful doors to the Baptistry. Each little square tells a Bible story.

The following day we went on a wine tour through Tuscany. The tour we went on was through the "Grape Tours" company and our specific tour was the Super Chianti Tuscan Wine Tour. We learned a lot about how vineyards in Tuscany are different from other vineyards around the world and how the grape used to make Chianti thrives in a super hot, dry climate so many vineyards there do not use irrigation systems. Our tour guide Tom was very informative and had a good sense of humor too. We had a great experience on this tour and loved getting to see several different boutique vineyards.




Devin was so excited because our tour took us to a restaurant that had been featured on Anthony Bourdain's show No Reservations. Devin loves that show and it was definitely one of the highlights of the trip for him. In hindsight, I should've been the one taking pictures of him here, huh? Oops!
The butcher, Dario Cecchini, inside his shop Antica Macelleria.


Outside at another vineyard. 

There was a little market in one of the towns we drove through for the wine tour, so we stopped and looked around. 

There were a lot of tents where local artisans were selling their things.

By the time we got back to Florence, most of things we wanted to see and do were closed AGAIN-- bad planning on our part! We had one more day planned for Florence but the weather was supposed to be awful, cold and pouring down rain so we decided to hop on an earlier train and head to Cinque Terre a day earlier. 

Are there any readers out there who have been to Florence? The next time we go, what are some of the things we should make time to see and do? I'm sure we missed out on so much and just had bad luck while we were there. I'd love some input on what to do when we go back! 

4 comments :

  1. The architecture and details of Florence are amazing!

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    1. The architecture was so beautiful. We will definitely have to go back again and give it another shot!

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  2. Wow! Stunning images!
    Thanks for sharing at https://image-in-ing.blogspot.com/2018/09/a-bit-of-bluegrass.html

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  3. Lovely and unique place captures . Please tell something about my captures on my blog.

    ReplyDelete