First stop: Florence
We took an easy 2 hour plane ride to Pisa and from the Pisa airport, managed to get ourselves on the train to Florence. Oh yeah - a funny story about the plane ride: two rows ahead of us on the plane, Nathaniel and I watched the flight attendant ask a passenger to put away his cell phone, and when he declined, she raised her voice a bit to ask him again. He said no once again, and at this point it escalated into yelling back and forth. Then, as the flight attendant was frantically pushing the call button for more help, the man in the seat grabbed her arm and yelled something else. The flight attendant yelled "Don't you touch me! Don't you ever touch me!" When two other flight attendants came to help her, she turned towards the back and murmured (so the story goes) "Krakov!" The passenger thought she swore at him so he got out of his seat and lunged towards her, yelling, but was held back by other flight attendants. She claimed she said Krakov because she was "going on holiday to Krakov tomorrow" but I guess we'll never really know. Long story short, the man was escorted off the plane by policemen, and as he was gathering his things, they made the announcement: "Sorry for the delay but there was a passenger who was physically and verbally abusive to one of our staff members. He is a danger on this aircraft and is being removed by security and no longer allowed on RyanAir." It was funny that this announcement was made while he was still on the plane. Scary guy.
Anyway, by the time we got to Florence, it was early evening, so we just walked around the area a little bit before finding our hotel, Boscolo Astoria. Apparently we had chosen a beautiful 5 star hotel (so cheap though!) just five minutes from the Duomo and city center. Couldn't have been happier. We then got dinner at La Giostra, a restaurant that EVERYONE had recommended to us. It was a small, hole-in-the-wall restaurant with an Italian menu we couldn't read a word of, and an owner/waiter with silver bracelets up to his elbows. It seemed like an adorable authentic Italian restaurant, with the exception that everyone there was American - they probably read about it on TripAdvisor or were told to go there by friends. Regardless, it was delicious.
Nathaniel at La Giostra
After dinner we walked around the city a little bit to see if we could get a feel. Every turn we took there was another unbelievable church or museum that we would never have expected. Here we are in front of one of the churches we stumbled upon.
Street paintings. These artists used colored charcoal to lay out the colors and then rubbed water onto it to stick and to blend the colors together. So cool!
Another street painting.
The first stop on our first official day in Florence was the Uffizi museum. The museum is in a beautiful building that overlooks the river and it has a ton of sculptures and religious paintings from hundreds of years ago. The majority of the paintings were of Jesus, his birth, the Virgin Mary, and other religious figures. Some of the paintings were really amazing, and we got to see some famous ones that I recognized, but towards the end they all started to look the same. Plus, I wasn't familiar with the historical or religious contexts of the artwork or the artists' particular styles, so it was a little hard to appreciate all the pieces. I guess it's world famous museum though, so when in Florence....
View of the river from a window at Uffizi.
The long hallway in the Uffizi lined with sculptures and some paintings.
After the Uffizi, we walked to Ponte Vecchio, a small street (I guess you could call it a street) that has a ton of little shops and most importantly, the best view of the river.
Nathaniel and I on our way to Ponte Vecchio.
So pretty.
The next place on our itinerary was the Bobili Gardens. We walked along the path for a while and saw some great statues hidden in the trees, a lot of green, and some fountains.
At Bobili Gardens.
View from the top.
Picture from the top.
We then went up some stairs, just to explore, and came across the most gorgeous landscape of the Italian countryside. The photos can only capture so much....
After our morning of exploring, we were famished, so we went to Gusta Pizza and Gusta Panini, two places that were highly recommended by friends. Needless to say, we we not disappointed. I don't know what it was about the pizza especially, but it might have been the best pizza I've ever had.
One of the guys working at Gusta Pizza.
Tomato, mozzarella, prosciutto panini!
Sitting on a stoop in front of the restaurant since there were no tables inside. Notice the people with pizza boxes in the background. Everyone was eating their pizzas and paninis on these stairs.
A cute pup on the street.
Some cool Italians.
Here are the highlights from the rest of the day:
Vivoli gelato!! So delicious. This one is Italian chocolate and cafe. The creamiest, richest gelato we had in Florence.
David.
Right before sunset, Nathaniel and I took a bus (yes we had a lot of trouble finding this bus...) to Piazzale Michaelangelo, an area on top of a hill with the most amazing view of Florence. We brought some wine and cheese and crackers and looked over Florence as we watched the sun set. Soooo beautiful.
Day 2: Vespa tour!! We signed up for a vespa tour through the Chianti region of Italy. The trip included all day vespa-riding through the wine country, a winery tour and tasting, lunch, and gelato. Not a bad deal. Nathaniel and I shared a vespa, so he drove, which may or may not have been the best idea......
Getting ready to depart.
Artsy
Also artsy.
Nathaniel on the vespa.
Andrea, our tour guide (pictured above) stopped to give us a little history about the region we were riding through. He said mostly all of it are wine and olive farms, primarily owned by one extremely wealthy family. The day of the tour was the first day the olive oil was being sold after the harvest, AKA it was the freshest olive oil of the year. He explained the people come from all over Italy to buy their olive oil supply fresh and directly from the farm in which it was harvested.
In a grape vineyard.
We stopped along the way in a tiny town where we got tastes of pecorino cheese with salty bread and the fresh olive oil! The pecorino was unbelievable, and as you can imagine, so was the olive oil. Great little pit stop.
We made another stop at a great photo-op location. Clearly they've done enough tours to know that we wanted pretty pictures...
Finally we arrived at the vineyard/winery/villa for our tour, tasting, and lunch.
Empty barrels of wine outside of the winery.
Barrels of wine waiting to be ready. Our tour guide told us that in order for a wine to be a true Chianti wine, the grapes have to be grown and harvested in the Chianti region. Many wine bottles will say Chianti if it was just bottled in the Chianti region, which is deceiving because the grapes will have come from somewhere else. If it's a real authentic Chianti wine, it will have a light pink label around the bottleneck, often times with a black rooster on it as well.
Some sort of contraption used to store the wine.
Huge barrels of olive oil. Smelled soooo good.
So many grapes! We saw a ton of grape(vines?) hanging to dry. Most of the grapes looked like little prunes, which I guess is the form they need to be in before they are turned into wine.
The garden and view of the vineyards.
A persimmons tree.
The only photo from lunch. We had a delicious meal of bruschettas, tomato-ish soup, and pasta, served with two different Chianti wines.
Driving through small towns.
Driving through the countryside.
Sheep.
After lunch we had a good 30 minutes of just driving, admiring the unbelievable landscape around us. Then, next thing I know, Nathaniel and I are laying on the side of the road, our vespa flipped over a few feet away from us. Sounds more dramatic than it was, and actually it probably should have been scarier, but yes, we fell off the vespa and got a few cuts and bruises.
Fresh wounds.
I hate blood.
Despite the little mishap near the end, the vespa tour day was my favorite day in Florence. I could have never imagined a landscape so beautiful, and it was so great to experience different small towns and the wine that Chianti residents are so proud of.
Of course we had to top off our day with a delicious Italian meal, so we went to Acqua del 2 for the BEST meal in Florence.
Amazing caprese salad.
Amazing blueberry steak.
UNBELIEVABLE port wine chicken with warm apples!!!
Nathaniel and I in front of the Duomo, an amazing church in the center of the city. We didn't go inside, but I've heard the the exterior is even prettier than the inside anyways. It's enormous and has so much detail it's incredible.
Nathaniel and the Duomo.
Just an angel statue.
We then went to the Basilica of Santa Croce, another enormous and beautiful church. It is the main attraction in this huge plaza, so we had to go inside. Basically just looked like any other giant cathedral inside, with ornate murals and stained glass and frescoes. The cool thing about Santa Croce though is that they have tombs of really famous Italian figures, which I have a photo of below.
In front of Santa Croce.
Dante's tomb.
Machiavelli's tomb
Courtyard behind Santa Croce.
More of the courtyard.
We then walked over to the market at Santa Ambrosia, which was just closing as we got there. We got a few good looks of some of the stands though, and it was a part of the city we hadn't seen before so I was happy we went. It was also the first time we had seen any sort of Halloween decorations (it was October 31) so it was fun to see Italians celebrating.
Happy Halloween!
More Halloween decorations at the market!
The only costume people would wear was the witch costume. That night we saw a bunch of kids and even adults walking around in costumes, all as witches.
Yum.
Sooooo many pastries. Not sure what they do with the ones they don't sell at the end of the day.
This is a photo of the Giotto's bell tower attached to the Duomo. Every day we passed by we saw a line down the street to climb it, but on this day there was no line! It was a sign that we had to go up. So we climbed all 414 stairs through a narrow, dungeon-like stairwell to the top for the most amazing view of Florence.
Picture of the Duomo from the top of the Duomo.
Nathaniel and I with the Duomo in the background.
View of Florence. Recognize Santa Croce?
Looking over Florence.
Nope, the day's still not over. Finally we wanted to go back to the river at Ponte Vecchio to watch the sun set.
Sitting along the river.
The sun set behind the buildings, but we still got a view of the colors in the sky reflecting off the water.
More street art, Halloween themed.
That night we went to Bocca Negro for dinner. Our tour guide had recommended that place and told us he had a friend there, Bepe. When we arrived, since we didn't have a reservation, they told us we couldn't eat there, but then we dropped Bepe's name and got a table! We had an amazing assortment of Tuscan food for a starter and then shared the T-bone steak which they are known for. Definitely the best, most flavorful steak I've ever had.
The following day was our final [half] day in Florence, so we took time to relax and leisurally walk around the city. We were willing to do some more sightseeing, but decided we had seen everything that we wanted to! So we just took a stroll to one of the plazas and sat at an outdoor cafe to eat pizza and people watch.
Pizza, yum.
Of course we had to have our final gelato in Florence, so we went to the gelateria that one of my friends claimed is her favorite in Florence. Have to admit it was soooo good. Thanks Kathryn.
Final photo in front of the Duomo.
Just me and a horse.
Then we were off to Pisa. When we arrived at our hotel, there was no one at the reception and it looked like there was no one in the building at all. Somehow we managed to find a call button to call the sister hotel, and the woman on the other end told us we would now be staying at that hotel and that someone would come to pick us up. Naturally we expected them to send a taxi or driver from the hotel (since we had our luggage) but no, they sent a small Vietnamese man on a bicycle to lead us there. We followed him, bags and all, for about ten minutes until we reached the new hotel, which we were happy to learn was a 5-star hotel. We must have been one of three guests there, but I guess it is the off season. We were also glad to hear that the Leaning Tower was just a three minute walk, so we walked over there to just in time to see the sunset.
Another building near the tower (really have no clue what it was, but it was pretty).
Leaning tower!
Taller than the tower.
More Leaning Tower.
That night we went to Il Campano for dinner, a small, rustic Italian restaurant that got good ratings on TripAdvisor (naturally). This is photo of the burrata cheese and roasted veggie appetizer. Soooo good.
Nathaniel and his long sought after meat and cheese plate.
The following day we headed back to Madrid. Couldn't have asked for a better trip - weather was perfect, sites were beautiful, Florence was amazing, and spending time with Nathaniel again was so much fun, and much needed. In Madrid we did a couple touristy things, including a trip to the Museo del Prado with my Spanish class. Our teacher gave us a little tour of the museum (in Spanish, so Nathaniel really had to focus since he's rusty) so we learned a lot about the artwork we saw.
We also went to the Royal Palace. It's such a cool place!
In front of the Palacio Real.
For the last supper, we went to Casa Lucas, a tiny tapas bar/restaurant on Cava Baja, a constantly busy street lined with restaurants and tapas bars. Food was delicious and service was great - perfect final meal.
At Casa Lucas.
One of the tapas called La Mancha. Warm tomato salad on a piece of toast covered with a fried egg and bacon bits. Delish.
Had such an amazing 9 days with Nathaniel and was so sad to see him go. Now back to real life...
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