Battistero di Firenze

We arrived in Florence, yesterday, late afternoon, totally exhausted after our huge day. We hadn’t counted on having to return to Cinque Terre to collect some of our belongings that hadn’t been removed from our accommodation. Needless to say we had been on the go since the sun rose and were not in the happiest of moods when we arrived in Florence. Finding our accommodation was a feat in itself, with there being very few street names and numbers, and what we didn’t realise was our flat was above some shops. We eventually found our accommodation for the next few days and it was pretty good, odd but good.

After an earlyish night, that we desperately needed, we headed out to explore Florence. We made our way to the Duomo Piazza and did the totally tourist thing and had breakfast sat admiring the Cathedral and Baptistery at Brunelleschi Bistrot. We had read so much about avoiding eating in the main tourist sites as the food won’t be the best and the prices would be dearer, but I have to say we loved our breakfast and it wasn’t expensive at all. In fact, we enjoyed breakfast there so much we returned again another day. Sometimes it is all about the location and we were lucky the food and price didn’t sour that for us.

Florence, like all Italian cities is an old city but there were lots of modern touches contrasting with the historic buildings. There were some big, bright, shiny sculptures, art on the building and lots of cool and unusual street art pieces around the city. And some of the window displays were amazing. I think our favourite and most surprising shop was the one dedicated to just rubber duck for the bath, in all sorts of themes. I have no idea how they even survive business wise, but in saying that we were so enthralled, we bought two for friends at home.

I love the contrasts of the city; I love the old and the new. It added extra interest to an already interesting place.Read more