Exploring Florence
Florence has been a treat! I'm so grateful this is where we started our trip. Our apartment is comfortable, and the city is rich with art, history, character, and amazing food.
Highlights
Boboli Gardens Picnic
On one of our first couple days of exploration, we walked past a side entrance to the Boboli Gardens, which one of our friends (thanks, Lauren!) had recommended visiting. We decided to make it a future date for a picnic. Leading up to the picnic, we stopped at multiple shops to scoop up the perfect goodies, including meat and cheese at Pegna and a bottle of wine at Enoteca Obsequium across the river.
We entered the gardens through the Palazzo Pitti, which was a beautiful building itself. After wandering the gardens for a bit, Jeff found a perfect, shaded bench for us to plop down our picnic essentials, including our trusty jambox. It was fun to bask in the sunny gardens and consider all the beautiful places we’ve enjoyed a wine picnic in the past, grateful for our current setting.
Pasta Rankings
Jeff and I had refrained from having Italian/pasta for a couple weeks leading up to the trip to save ourselves for pasta overload in Italy. Two weeks in, lots of pasta had, and I'm not remotely tired of eating it! Jeff had the idea of maintaining a "top 3" pasta list while in Italy the next couple months. Here's where the rankings stand at the end of Florence:
#1: Pappardelle duck ragu, Osteria Vini e Vecchi Sapori
#2: Spaghetti carbonara, from our cooking class
#3: Cheese and pear ravoilini, Coquinarius
Soccer Match
We had the chance to catch a soccer match while in Florence, which made for a fun night! Jeff found a legit ticket booth in Piazza Republica and we got front row tickets for only €25. The crowd was the most entertaining part of the game, though it was fun to see the home team win! There was also a gorgeous sunset sky during the second half. After the game, we trekked back to our neighborhood, grabbed pizza to go, and had a pizza party at home.
Museum Days with the Firenze card
We knew we wanted to visit at least a few of the of amazing museums while in Florence, so we did some research and decided to splurge on the Firenze card, a 72-hour museum pass. It pushed us to maximize the pass, and we had three "museum days" trekking to different sights including Uffizi, Accademia Gallery, the Duomo, and the Galileo Museum.
We saw art by all of the ninja turtles - Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael! There was also an overwhelming amount of Madonna col Bambino paintings. One of our favorite spots, though, was the tower at Palazzo Vecchio, which had a beautiful view of the city.
Italian Wine
We've dipped our toes into the Italian wine scene! My knowledge of Italian wines is not great, so I was excited to start learning more about them while visiting Italy for a couple months. Thanks to a quick 101 tutorial from my dad, we have a foundation of Tuscan wines and have enjoyed trying Chianti, Brunello, and Rosso di Montalcino since being here. We're looking forward to visiting actual wineries once we're down in Tuscany at the end of the month!
Rose Garden Sunset
On one of our first nights in Florence, we wanted to walk to the Piazzale Michelangelo across the river to catch a new view of the city and enjoy the sunset. After seeing how packed the Piazzale was with tourists, we snuck off into the neighboring Rose Garden, found a secret nook, and enjoyed the views all to ourselves while drinking wine out of gelato cups.
Cooking Class
We took a cooking class that our friends recommended (thanks, Mark & Lisa!). It was an easy, perfect day trip from Florence and a great experience. I wrote up a little more about the class here.
All the Foods
Many of our food highlights are captured in my Florence Guide recap, but other highlights included enjoying charcuterie and wine at a hole in the wall with just a couple seats (at Il Bufalo Tripone), trying cannoli for the first time, and making our first meal on the road in our apartment with local ingredients we picked up from the mercato.
