Florence has been my Holy Grail of travels since I was about 6 years old. Something about seeing the pictures of medieval streets, hearing about the Duomo, and of course, the David in the Accademia has called to me...Such history and beauty. Florence certainly delivered all of that to us, and so much more. My two favorite things about the city were the Ponte Vecchio, which made me feel as if I were in medieval times just by walking across it, and the age-old towns scattered throughout Tuscany that we visited while there. Oh, and Michelangelo's four Unfinished Slaves, housed in the same corridor as the David sculpture, but don't get as much recognition. I had not heard much of these sculptures before seeing them, but was enthralled by the fact that while named Unfinished, Michelangelo seemed to have purposely made them look unfinished...meaning, perhaps they ARE finished...
However, Kevin and I were not so impressed by the food in Florence. While we had a lot of wonderful wines (and brought a few Chianti's home with us from the Tuscan vineyards), we did not seem to find any amazing food there. Good, but not great. Maybe we just went to the wrong places, I don't know.
There was, however, incredible shopping in Florence. Yes, I did purchase a Florentine leather handbag, which I was quite excited about. I was also excited about the shoes there, though I did not buy any (somehow).
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| A wall of shoes outside a shop in Florence. |
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| View from the walls of Monteriggioni, a super tiny Tuscan village. |
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| Grape vines from a vineyard in the Chianti region. |
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| View of Tuscan hills from atop the village of San Gimignano |
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| Kevin sat in with the jazz band playing in our favored restaurant in Florence, the Golden View. |
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| What is left of my vegetable pasta and Kevin's.....what else?....gnocchi. |
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| A close of of my vegetable pasta and all it's parmesan glory. |
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| Happy Hour in Florence consisted of these orange drinks which I am still not entirely sure what they contain. I know there is Prosecco in there, and I know they were delicious. |
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| A view of Ponte Vecchio from the next bridge up, the bridge with the four seasons at each corner. |
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| Kevin also found a street band to sit in with in Siena. Apparently they made A LOT of Euro. |
