Our First Destination
The trip has begun!
We made it to our first destination, Florence, on Thursday, September 7th. The train ride from Rome was easy peasy - I highly recommend taking the Italo train, upgrading to Prima, and opting for the Tiburtina station in Rome for a more comfortable experience.
Once in Florence, we went directly to our new homebase, a one-bedroom Airbnb, to drop off our things. After hauling three very heavy suitcases up six flights of stairs, we were thankful to be staying put for a few weeks.
We love this apartment! The location is on the outskirts of the crazy tourist area - it's near the action but not directly in it, still surrounded by everything. The apartment itself is spacious and updated, with a great kitchen for us to cook in. We're happy to call it home for three weeks!
The view from our apartment window
After unpacking our things, we ventured out to start exploring. We wandered to the "Duomo" (the shorthand nickname of the iconic Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral in central Florence) and decided to be touristy and enjoy an Aperol Spritz in front of the Duomo.
For our first night, we grabbed dinner at a cute casual spot called Il Coccolo a block from our apartment. "Coccolo" is found on menus all over town; it's fried dough filled with cheese, and this place had a bunch of varieties of it. Since we were having dinner so early, we had the place to ourselves (I had forgotten about the European standard schedule!). We devoured our first plates of true Italian pasta with our first glasses of wine (Chianti).
That night we were treated with a Tuscan thunderstorm, a fun way to end our first official day in Italy (and of our trip!).
Piazza della Signoria before the storm
