Our day in Florence

Our day in Florence

We left a rainy Rome to a rainy Florence. It is still so beautiful though! Our hotel won't let us check in for another two hours so we are still in a cafe sipping cappuccino and eating croissants! And! Ryan is actually sipping the cappuccino haha! Normally he hates coffee! I swear I refuse to spend money on anything besides plain coffee unless I'm here, it is out of this world!

When we can finally go to our hotel, we can get all cute and explore...

After we checked in to this super cute B&B - Locanda die Ciompi (very nice, helpful, and so close to the main attractions) we set out and went right to the Piazzale Michaelangeo which is up on a hill and over looks the entire city! We were so lucky because as we left the hotel, the rain stopped so we got some amazing sunny pictures! A short walk to the ponte vecchio we got to see all of the jewelry shops and the gold! So much gold! Next was a stop at my favorite place, the plazzo vecchio where there are about 15 marble statues that are so massive they make people look about two feet tall. My favorite is one of the only bronze statues and shows Percious beheading Medusa. Most of the statues in this square have been there since the 1700's dating back to the 1500's. The last before our lunch break was the famous "Duomo" or Cantedral di Santa Maria die Fiore which is a huge white, pink, and green set of a bell tower, chapel, and Basilica.

Ryan needed a small nap due to head ache, so I watched real housewives. Gotta love my iPad! Ryan was good to go in about an hour so we got to see more sites like San Marco's square, Basilica di San Lorenzo, and the Palazzo Pitti. Dinner was so good, it was gone in 5 minutes, there is no picture evidence but let me tell you, to die for. We ate at Il Vegetariano, a small but intimate vegetarian/Italian place. We shared things like Brie and Spinach lasagna, rice and ricotta casserole, and some kind of fritata with broccoli and grains. It was gone before it even hit the plate! Now back in the hotel, we are relaxing and have barely unpacked because we leave again tomorrow morning for Venice!

Dear Florence, you stole my heart. Love, Kristin

Hello 3 people who are actually reading this! Hope every one is enjoying their Friday. Mine will be filled with blueberry tea, work, more work, a little school, and hopefully a date night! I'm sitting here flipping through pictures of Florence and getting lost all over again in this romantic city. What I liked about my trip to Europe for the first time was the fact that I really hadn't done any research on any of the places. Sure I knew Venice had gondulas and Germany had beer but I went in with a completly blank slate of what to expect. Florence is jaw dropping. I remember running down an alley in the rain and saying to Bobbye Jo "I was born to love Paris but made to live in Florence!" I remember how the rain smelt, my red polka dot dress, the taste of esspresso gelato, and the wonder of the city.

Always order tea in France and coffee in Italy!

The fountain of Neptune

Palazzo Vecchio

Florence is littered with copies of Michelangeo's "David" to find the real one, you'll have to go inside the Accademia Gallery. If you don't want to spend the money to get in, at least walk through it to see the statues of Da Vinci and Galileo.

Piazza Michaelangelo as you can see, is covered in sculpture and I highly reccomend a tour guide to explain all of them.

(my favorite: Medusa)

This is Ponte Veccio, one of the 6 bridges that the Nazis did not destroy during World War 2 (August of 1944). This bridge is still in tact today regaurdless of it being 700 years old! On the bridge you can find a lot of jewlery stores and other luxuries.

Touching the boar on the nose will grant you another trip to Florence!

The famous Cathedral. And please, Jersey shore (even though I love you), understand that this is NOT the Vatican. Ugh.

Florence is a wonderful place to invest in leather and silver. If you plan on going here, I highly reccomend saving a little extra spending money. I absolutley fell in love with this ring that I had to part with becasue I didn't plan for it! Maybe it's still waiting for me...