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| Bistec a la Fiorentina |
Memory has begun to fade, but I'll do my best to do justice to lovely Florence. After a very pleasant Eurail trip from Rome, we arrived in Florence and walked through the center of town to our hotel,
Hotel Monna Lisa. This lovely little boutique hotel is really more like staying in a well-to-do family's townhome than a proper hotel. It's a calm oasis in the middle of Florence with furnishings that are unique and shabbily genteel, and a lovely atrium in the breakfast room with a view to the back garden. Florence was my favorite city in Italy on my first trip, and this jaunt only confirmed my preference. I love Florence. The cobbled streets, choc-a-block with chic shops, art gallerys, churches and museums are a pleasure to stroll through and the myriad food options are all amazing. I could spend endless afternoons wending my way around. This trip, we got more of an inside scoop from Mom and Dad's neighbor, Amy, who was studying abroad while we were there. She introduced us to two of the best gelaterias in Florence,
Carapina and
Grom, which were so good that we made sure to go at least once a day while we were there. I highly, highly recommend the
crema di vin santo at Carapina, but everything was excellent. For dinner, Amy took us to
Il Gatto e La Volpe for excellent pizza, pasta and some of the best house made balsamic vinegar ever - if you go, definitely try to pack some home, it's amazing. Another night, we took a bus to the residential part of Florence and had one of the biggest steaks I've ever seen - the waitress brought it out for Dad and I to approve before we ate it. You have to love bistec a la fiorentina - more meat than an American can handle! I took Mom and Dad for the prerequisite trip to the top of the Duomo, where we had beautiful views out over the city. The one-armed-bandit photo I took of me and Mom is one of my favorite from the trip.
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| Mom and me, from the Duomo |
The Uffizi Gallery remains one of my favorite spots in the world. If I could curl up in a chair with a good book in the gallery overlooking the Arno, with it's lovely whitewashed ceiling and delicate hand-painted detailing, surrounded by Boticellis and the watery sunlight streaming through windows that have begun to weep with age, I might be happy forever. It has to be one of the world's most impressive collections of art, but it's also just a beautiful space in the world, and oddly cozy in its own way. From the Uffizi, we took a stroll through the Piazza della Signorina and made a stop at
Rivoire for the famous hot chocolate -- possibly the best in the world, if you ask me. Our art tour of Florence ended with Michelangelo's spectacular David. The statue always makes me wonder about the boy who inspired it and the sculptor who was so fascinated by him; David and his Goliath seem the lesser subjects of the work.
You cannot leave Florence without some retail therapy, so we tried on gloves in every color of the rainbow in the leather market, bought chocolates for Dad, lovely ruffled opera gloves and a python clutch for me, and introduced Mom to the wonders of Missoni scarves. A return trip to
Bartolucci secured wooden music boxes for Niels, Cordi, and Ronin, plus a fair bit of entertainment for all of us 'adults' as we wandered through the shop testing them all out. There are endless joys behind the tiny shop doors and through the alleyways of Florence. Rome was charming and not to be missed, but if you have one stop to make in Italy, perhaps in all of Europe, make it Florence - you will never regret it.
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