Exploring Florence

Today we explored Florence, and completed our adventures in Tuscany!

We started our day with coffee at the local diner we’d found a few days back; their cappuccinos were again fantastic! Following coffee, we made the 1.5 hour drive to the outskirts of Florence, where we parked and took a tram into the city center.

We started our Florence exploration walking through the Piazza Del Duomo, which is a city square in the heart of Florence that houses the Cathedral, Bell Tower, and Basilica. We marveled at the beauty of these buildings, and made plans to come back later in the day to scale the bell tower for a view of the city.

Our next stop was for affogatos from a famous affogato spot Chelsea found on Instagram called Vivoli. There was a long line, and the affogatos were pricey, but we felt they were worth it as they were delicious! We both had pistachio affogatos, which was essentially an espresso shot poured directly onto pistachio gelato, with a pistachio rim around the drink.

Once we were caffeinated, we made our way to a local sandwich spot and had stellar paninis. Chris had a porchetta sandwich with meatballs on the side, and Chelsea had a vegetarian panini with pesto. We were both really impressed with this meal, and loved that it was super cheap.

Now that our appetites were satiated we were ready to really explore!

We headed next to Piazza Signoria, which was another large plaza housing a ton of marble sculptures and a large museum. Following this, we meandered to the Ponte Vecchio bridge, which is a really cute bridge with shops built into the sides and beneath it. We got some great photos here, but didn’t do much shopping, and we have no space in our bags 😂

It was extremely hot, so for our next stop we tried to find a wine window. These are windows built into the walls of restaurants that wine is sold out of, and they were installed way back to avoid taxes, which we both found hilarious. Now most of the wine windows are sealed up, but some are open at local restaurants and bars. We did find one, but there were so many tourists queuing to take pictures that we opted to just sit in a local bar. We both had a spritz, Chris went with Campari, and Chelsea with Aperol.

After our drinks we headed back to Piazza Del Duomo, and explored the Cathedral. We went inside and checked out the interior, and then went under the Cathedral to check out the ruins of the prior cathedral from 300 BC. Finally, we climbed the Bell Tower, getting panoramic views of the cathedral, and the rest of the city.

After that we called it a day and drove home, picking up ingredients and cooking for our last night in Tuscany.Read more