Italy Summer 2019

We spent only one day in Florence, simply seeing the main sights. We left Venice that morning, after breakfast at the Hotel Ala. We took the Italo train, which while very comfortable, with spacious seats, was not especially scenic. Everyone fell asleep. The Venice train station was especially nice, with lots of shops (I got a t-shirt!), whereas the Florence train station was basic.

Hotel Alba Palace was only two blocks from the train station, so was a very easy walk. We had a triple room, which instead of squeezing two beds into one room, it actually had a cool spiral staircase leading to the second floor, with my bed. It even had a tv! Although, not much help since it was in Italian. We were then very ahead of schedule, since we did not plan on walking right out of the train station, and for getting to the hotel to be so quick.

We first went over to Santa Maria Novella, which was right next to the hotel. It is a store that sells perfumes, candles, home fragrance, skincare, and similar things, only using old recipes used by the monks many years ago. We got a wax fragrance closet hanger for my grandmother, and my mom and I both got a perfume, at the recommendations of the assistant helping us, after listening to our preferences. Florence is not the only location, but this particular Santa Maria Novella is in a beautiful old building, complete with even some frescoes.

We headed over the Florence’s Mercato Centrale for lunch. The first floor has lots of little shops, where you assemble a cheap meal with fresh ingredients, or buy little things to take home (I’ll get to that later). On the second floor they have restaurant stands where you can buy a meal. They have a wide variety of things: pasta dishes, supleé, wine stands, dessert stands, sushi stands, etc. We ended up getting two plates with meats, cheeses (pecorino and buffalo mozzarella) tomatoes, olives, among other things (the picture is posted below). My parents got some wine from a little stand. We ended getting cannolis for dessert, where we watched the lady pipe the cream filling into the outer shell (so it doesn’t get soggy). The had to have been the best cannolis I’ve ever eaten!

After this, we had planned to see Accademia, for the Statue of David, but our timed tickets were not for several hours. We went ahead with the rest of our plans.

Next up was The Duomo. While it was under restoration, I was able to get pictures without scaffolding. We also saw the Gates of Paradise while we were there. While very cool, to me, they were just pretty doors.

Next up was gelato, and then off to Accademia. We were 30 minutes early for our entrance, but we got in anyways. I was so happy I didn’t have to wait in the huge line! David is very cool, but the rest of the museum is small, and very hot. I am appalled that all of the paintings are not kept climate controlled!

We were next off to the BOAR STATUES NAME?, which was cool because we have one back at home. Next was the short walk to the Ponte Vecchio, where we walked along the expensive shops. We walked to Piazza Della Signoria and looked at everything there. I recognized one of the statues as Perseus and Medusa from Greek mythology.

With our day complete, we headed to a dinner at PLACE, which was on the same block as the hotel, after realizing Mercato Centrale was not open (we headed back to buy a couple of little souvenirs, like a painted bottle of olive oil. This restaurant was absolutely wonderful, and was on the same street as the hotel. I got a ravioli was a bolognese, my dad got a wild boar pasta, and my mom got a truffle pasta, which she said was the best meal of the trip so far! For dessert I got Crema Catalana, which is very similar to Creme Brûlée, but so much better! It is much creamier, and more yellow (more egg yolk?). Overall, it was a really good day!Read more