Early on the first day of the year we headed to Florence. Neither David nor I had been here in well over 20 years, and Sally had never been to Tuscany. We naively thought it would be a less crowded time of year, but there were still a lot of tourists. We flew in and out of Rome, which let us take the fun (new to us!) high-speed train from Rome to Florence. It had some lovely views, though mostly was in tunnels which really messed with our ears. It shows the speed on the monitors and we were clocking almost 300 km/hour!
After checking out our very cool airbnb in the hipster Oltrano neighborhood, we explored down to around Del Duomo and had a nice coffee/drink/snack at trendy (and overpriced, but worth it for the people-watching and excellent location!) Cafe Gilli in Piazza della Repubblica. After a bit of down time, we went to a local fine-dining venue called “iO - Osteria Personale” where we experienced Italian haute cuisine and excellent service.
On Jan 2nd, we started off with a walking tour. It rained a bit on and off, but the tour guide was excellent and we all learned a lot about the history of Florence and some of its most famous residents. Also saw a lot of "wine windows," which started during the Medici reign but were especially useful during the plague and again during COVID.
We followed the tour with, of course, a lovely lunch with wine and espresso. Then Sally and I did some exploring and shopping in town. In the late afternoon I went for a long walk in the neighborhood then we had a lovely local dinner at a brewery/pizza spot called Rione Brewpub. Again we delighted in excellent food and service.
On Jan 3rd we started with a guided tour of Del Duomo. This tour didn’t go as well as the day before. Sally had difficulty understanding our guide, and she almost never paused to even breathe, let alone organize her thoughts or ask if we had any questions. You can’t win them all. While the history of Del Duomo (or, more properly, Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore) is interesting, and it’s lovely to look at from an architectural and physics standpoint, unless you’re climbing to the top (at €90pp we didn’t do it!) it is rather boring (especially inside - very austere, as our guide kept saying). It was another very wet day, so we cheered ourselves up with a second stop at Cafe Gilli, then powered on to explore Ponte Vecchio and the Uffizi and lunch (yes, so much eating!).
The Uffizi is one of the top 3 visited museums in the world and I think David said it best, “the Uffizi Gallery is basically 92.4% ugly baby Jesus paintings. The other 7.6% is dudes without pants.” That said, we enjoyed our time and certainly marveled at Botticelli’s work, notably The Birth of Venus. Sally is really into paint pigment colors (and we attended a lecture on it all together at the National Gallery last year) so we took the time to appreciate the colors and details of all the baby Jesus paintings…and spent not zero time discussing how poorly people understood the anatomy of the human (and equine) body for so long!
We finished our time at the Uffizi by walking through the Vasari Corridor, a raised/enclosed walkway (about 1 km long) above the Ponte Vecchio. This only reopened a couple of weeks before, after a many year-long renovation. It was how generations of Medici family members walked from work to home (Uffizi/Palazzo Vecchio to the Pitti Palace) without having to be among the throngs of people and be at risk of murder or disease. The corridor itself is very austere (word of the day! And not one I usually associate with Italy), yet really neat to walk above Ponte Vecchio and think of all those who had gone before.
We finished up in the gardens of Pitti Palace, which, pitifully, were closing so we could’t explore. Next time. Some cannoli fueled our walk home. That night David and I ventured out for dinner on our own just around the block from our apartment while Sally enjoyed some TV time with her leftover pizza. Dinner at Ristorante Le Volte Firenze was honestly incredible.
On Jan 4th we started at the Academia to see Michelangelo’s David, which was as breath-taking as David and I remembered. We also got to see the first upright piano in their hall of musical instruments. After a little coffee and rest, we hopped on the train and headed to Pisa for the afternoon.
We were all totally charmed by Pisa. Neither David nor I went previously - admittedly I always thought it was too touristy and agreed it was ridiculous to spend money and time visiting an architectural failure. It may be, but totally worth it. Picturesque little town with winding streets on the Arno (honestly it was more like how I remembered Florence in my mind). We meandered our way (thanks, Rick Steves) towards the Leaning Tower, stopping for a bit of pizza while en route (Sally rightfully insisted we eat pizza in Pisa). The first view of the tower itself was somewhat shocking - it really is leaning significantly and it is massive!
At the Tower we first explored their Duomo, which honestly is 100 times more beautiful inside than that of Florence, even if the actual dome is a bit smaller.
Then we waited our turn to climb the tower. It’s honestly really disorienting - you can see where the steps are worn away on the inside of one side of the tower, then middle, then outside, then middle and the cycle repeats. You actually feel the “lean” physically as you climb up. At the top it’s similar - you feel like you’re climbing upwards to sit on one side, and then leaning precipitously over the crowds below when on the other side. It also happened to be a really nice day so we enjoyed sitting up there for a while. Sally made us promise that we’d do this together every 5 years, which we’re going to hold her to.
After a little beverage we headed back to Florence and hit our favorite Rione Brewpub for a second time. It was that good.
On Sunday it was again pouring (always makes it easier to leave somewhere) and as soon as the sun was up I went for a pretty unpleasantly wet and cold run, but hard to complain since it was along the Arno River. Then we took the train back to Rome, where we had a few hours before we needed to go to the airport. So, after stowing our bags, we started with lunch at a stop whose pizza Sally has been talking about since 1 year ago when she first had it with Eva and Will the last night we were in Rome following New Year’s 23-24. The food did not disappoint, and then we followed Sally’s recommendation and explored the Via dei Fori Imperiali (the pedestrianized street running between the Colosseum and the Monument to Victor Emmanuel II). She’s been there a couple times but loves it, and I can’t blame her. The sun came out and we looked at ruins and talked about the Romans and had a lovely afternoon to wrap up our first trip of the year.
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