48 Hours in Firenze (Florence)

Tuesday:
As three people going on a trip together, we split up the traveling duties—I was in charge of booking the plane and trains and we each took a city to plan for. Maddy and Lauren both researched and booked hostels. Trains became a pain to book. We discovered that the Italian train website do not accept American credit cards, so we were forced to buy train tickets when we got to each city, which worked out fine and that is how most people do it anyway. Traveling within Italy can be seen as easy to some, but it was very stressful for me.

Because it’s so “easy” to travel within Italy, trains are not loaded until like 15 minutes before they are ready to depart, so when we got the Rome train station 2 hours early, we were forced to wait around in the station with no waiting area for over an hour. There is nobody to check train tickets until the end of the journey when the conductor checks the tickets towards the end. It is a different way of doing things compared to what we were used to, but it all worked out fine for us.

We got into Florence, my city to plan, by lunchtime, where it continued to downpour. We checked into our hostel, which was much nicer than the one in Rome, but along the same lines. There were six people to a room, also with lockers to lock up our stuff. Florence is nice because it is such a compact, tiny city. It was very easy, and a relief to us, to walk for the entire time there opposed to figuring out another public transportation system. We ate lunch and explored the center of town near our hostel. The center of town is a piazza housing a huge, ancient cathedral called Il Duomo. It is by far my favorite cathedral in Europe. It was so unique and unlike any church I’d ever seen. First of all, the outside was light pink and light green trim surrounded in whiteness. The church had so many layers and intricate architecture. It was beautiful.

We then explored Palazzo Medici-Ricardi, which was a palace with many works of art. Florence is really a memorial to the Renaissance period, which was very interesting to explore. I discovered a dinner theatre called Teatro del Sale through my online research and we decided it would be worth spending an evening there. It was a members-only club, so we bought membership at the door for 5 euros and paid for dinner and the show. The place is supposed to be filled with locals and traditional Florentine and Tuscan food, so this was probably our only taste of authentic local life. Dinner was from 7:30-9:30 and we literally ate for all two hours straight. Italians can eat. We snagged a comfy three-person table close the stage when a man, presumably the chef, proceeded to scream from the kitchen in Italian whenever the next course was out. We assumed he would say what the food was and make a joke when announcing it, but it was never in English.

The food was delicious. It started with appetizers—a wide selection of beans, salad and sauces. We loaded up, and were cordially told by a worker that we should only take small portions, because that is how Italians eat—a lot in small sizes. Maddy and Lauren seemed a little offended, but I was too happy to fully embrace Italian culture outside the touristy places to care. Then came the real food—meatballs with capers, shell pasta with tomato sauce, meat and cheese, risotto, lamb and chicken, sausage and potatoes, oysters and, finally, rich chocolate brownies with thick cream and huge wafer cookies for dessert. It was an amazing meal. The entertainment consisted of a two-man band that sang only in Italian. Despite being exhausted by the time they started at 9:30, we enjoyed the music and thoroughly enjoyed our evening.

Wednesday:
Wednesday was another rainy day, but just as enjoyable. We began the day, thankfully the least rainiest part of it, by going to the Boboli Gardens, which we were told were amazing. Even through the rain and clouds, you could tell what a beautiful place it was. We came, thankfully, before the tourist rush, and the rain for that matter, and walked through the beautiful gardens and fountains. There was also a great overview of Florence and the Tuscan countryside, which was great to soak in. It was a definite highlight of the week. With our ticket came admission to a costume and china museum, which was also very cool. The costume museum was kind of like a history of fashion and the china museum had a lot of interesting things. It was a very enjoyable morning.

We ate lunch and attempted to dry off over pasta before walking more in the rain. The Gardens were somewhat far from our hostel, across the Arno River, which is beautiful and had gorgeous bridges. We stumbled across an Opera museum, which was more of a museum that housed artifacts that had been stolen from Il Duomo, but were later found and placed in this museum. It was an interesting piece of history to see.

We went back to the hostel to change our jeans and socks before heading to the Vecchio Palace, which was filled with immaculate art pieces, which was gorgeous. We soaked it all in, before walking along the River and going across a very cool bridge that was not only a bridge, but had shops throughout. It was a bridge filled with JUST jewelry stores. Quite amazing that that much jewelry actually exists, but it was a very cool bridge. We ate dinner in the Palazzo surrounding the Vecchio Palace and went back to the hostel exhausted.

Thursday:
I was sad to leave Florence, especially since we were not there that long, however, we made our last day worthwhile. We got up early and had the same breakfast as the day before and checked out of the hostel, but left our stuff with them for the time being. Florence was a luxury because it was so small that our stuff could stay at the hostel and not be a pain to go back and collect later in the day. We decided to go to the Museo Academia—an art museum with its crown jewel being Michelangelo’s David. It was a nice museum to go through in the rain, because it of course rained this day as well. David was pretty cool to see in person. It was very large and somewhat moving. I can see why it’s famous.

We then went back to the hostel and got our stuff before having our last meal in Florence. We ate at another cute little Italian restaurant where an older lady who worked there immediately collected our umbrellas and put them in plastic bags. It was kind of a lost cause, as all our bags were soaking, but it was cute how she mom-ed us. I ate Florentine pizza (red and yellow peppers and salami) before sprinting to the train station to escape the rain. Our train was also late to Venice and it was another worrisome waiting period.