I begin this post by saying that we arrived in Florence, Italy, on February 14th. That’s right. Valentine’s Day. Awesome. My crew were my valentines, that’s fo sho.
Because my amazing CouchSurfing hosts gave me a map, a list of their “bests of the best” and keys to their apartment, I was able to wander around Florence to seek-and-find that which the city had to offer. On my morning stroll I found myself at Cassiope’s favorite café, home of the giant cappuccino that costs only one euro. It was here that I learned that in Italy it costs more to sit at the table than it does to order at the bar. From then on, I did all of my ordering standing up, leaning on the counter. What an excellent and frothy and giant cappuccino!
After meeting up with Amy and Emily (and, coincidentally enough, seeing the two American women we had met at the gelato place in Pisa only the day before… when asked if they were looking for gelato yet (mind you, it was only 10:45 am) they said they were looking for the David. I chose to go for gelato before the statue, of course)) we started our wlaking tour of Florence. We found our way to Mercato Centrale, my “home” for the stay, where we thriftily spent 3.50 each on a splendid picnic. At the market we found ourselves buying from the fruit stand, the nut stand, and from a baker/butcher. Said baker/butcher started joking around with us, nicknamed the three of us, and I tried my Italian phrases. What do I know in Italian? Some compliments, “nice to meet you” and some swear words. Ok, I didn’t try out the latter on him but I worked in the rest into an awkwardly hilarious conversation that was part Italian, part French, part English and mostly giggles.
This is the part where I tell you what I ate!
Banana (woohoo potassium), cashews (woohoo, protein) and a sandwich consisting of the world’s greatest bread, red pepper, and an amazing pork whose name I forget.
YUM
We ate our picnic in the square and people-watched as swarms of pigeons attempted to take our sandwiches. Have any of you seen the picture of Heather and I covered at Trafalgar Square in London? The one where we’re covered in pigeons? Yeah, it was kind of like that. We did a fantastic job of avoiding Florence pigeon poo… go us!
Post-lunch we made our way through the beautiful city. Naturally, after the success of gelato in Pisa, we had to have our first taste of gelato in Florence. We made our away to the famous Gelateria de Neri, as suggested in my Let’s Go Europe! Tourbook. This LGE has it r
ight: the gelato they suggested, the crema giotto, is as off the hook as they described. What’s grema giotto? Coconut, almond, hazelnut gelato. Complete heaven.Stuffed, we walked across the Ponte Vecchio, the bridge that used to support the artists and geniuses of long ago. Now the Ponte is home to jewelers and tourist stands. Kind of reminded me of Koreantown in NYC.
On the other side of the river, we walked up Piazzola Michaelangelo. It is from the PIazzola that visitors get the most stunning view of Florence. It was so stun
ning, in fact, that Amy fell asleep as we basked in the glow of the sun. There is a fake David (a “Fa
vid,” if you will) at Piazzola Michaelangelo and, having seen this, we decided that we did not need to go to the museum, The Academia, where the real David is held. Remember how it was Valentine's season when we were in Florence? The Italians were feeling it. I wasn't. (see picture to left)After giggling at the Daivid and taking tons of pictures, we walked back to the city center. Amy, Emily, and I met up with Darija again and the four of us set out to find dinner, a la the suggestion of LGE. We spent a half hour searching for one specific restaurant but to no avail. Instead, we ended up at Il Borgo Antico, another LGE-recommended restaurant and sat down to giant meals of pizza and pasta.
Post dinner, we rolled our way to the JJ Cathedral, an American bar kiddie corner from the Duomo. It was our intention to “go out” on the town but, one 5 euro Bailey’s later, we decided to call it a night.
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