On To Florence

Today is the day that we traveled to Florence. Jen and I were lucky enough to come to Italy for our 20th wedding anniversary so we knew that this time we would largely be doing the same things we did back then. That is fine because it gives us the opportunity to share what we loved about this city with our kids.

To get here we needed to take a train from La Spezia to Pisa and then switch trains in Pisa to go to Florence. We had 8 minutes to change trains... but our train left La Spezia 10 minutes late so we were shot right off the bat to make our train. But the cool thing about train travel in Italy and a lot of Europe is that tickets are flexible. We checked when we arrived in Pisa to make sure but they just confirmed that our tickets are good for any train going to Florence in the next 4 hours. And there are lots of trains. So we just waited for the next train and we were on our way.

Florence was just how we remembered it.... only much hotter. We were able to get into our apartment early so that was great. We got in, fought over beds, cranked up the air conditioning and then headed out to see the city.

We had nothing scheduled for the day but we thought, if we could get a few things out of the way early it will make our other days less busy. So the first thing we did was to go see Santa Croce. It is the church down in Michaelangelo's neighborhood and there are tonnes of famous people buried there. Plus the church is really cool. There are carvings from Donatello in there, the graves of Michaelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, and many more, and amazing stain glass windows. We wandered around for awhile until we had seen all we could see and then it was out to the courtyard. Again, it was really hot so we got some water and sat together to figure out what we should do. Liam was feeling pretty tired because of our big Cinque Terre day so he didn't feel like doing much. We decided to walk over to the Ponte Vecchio, see the bridge, get some food, and then head back to the apartment for a little siesta.

The kids started a game of magic while we relaxed. Then we decided to head out for... what else... Gelato. We did some wandering first around the Duomo, then got our gelato, and sat on the steps, people watched and ate our gelato. What a great way to end our first day in Florence.

Tomorrow we are off to do the Uffizi Gallery and the Duomo. We will see what else we can fit in. Now... off to bed in a cool room. Ahhhhh.Read more