July 16th : The Joys of Florence!

Have you ever had a day that you felt everything was against you?  We may or may not have had one of those days on our first journey into Florence.  Florence, as a city, could be personified on that day as a cruel older brother........

We got up and bravely drove into Florence equipped with some tips from home town hero Ricky Steves (who I have some words for about his “hints” for parking).  As we “exited” the highway (in Italy many times you are forcefully exited from the highway, whether or not you found the actual exit you were so frantically looking for.  Many exit signs have like 9 long Italian names on them.  Picture trying to read Shakespeare while you’re playing a racing video game and you aren’t driving the corvette; its a Toyota Yaris.  P.S. We love Yoshi. He keeps us from speeding.) We found some free parking after nearly being run over by an angry BMW that was sure the speed limit was 180 km/per hour. We found a map and decided it was a good idea to “walk” into the city center........................

Oh how we wish we hadn’t done that.

Excluding the inevitable stop at H&M to shop for a half hour(where somehow I ended up buying clothes and Jennifer didn’t), we spent nearly 3 hours wandering, trudging, and dragging ourselves toward the city center. But finally, we made it.

We were tired already. Our feet hurt. So sweaty. We just needed food. And water...  Or gelato.  

Our first interaction with a florentine (?) human was at a Gelateria. I asked for a “cup” of cookie flavored gelato. The kid probably smiled in his mind and said, “tourist”. He handed me a 2 or 3 pound bucket of ice cream and smiled. Ok, it wasn’t a bucket but it was way bigger than I wanted. Jen was smart enough to specify what size she wanted.  She elected for the much more realistic, schmedium sized cup. For 5 euros (still about double what we have been paying for the same size elsewhere). Thats like 7 US dollars!! She wouldn’t even tell me how much mine cost. I think we might have spent around $20 USD on two cups of ice cream. Welcome to Florence.

Shortly before gelato, in attempt to lighten the mood from the long walk, I had the genius idea to do a cute photo booth picture shoot. We hoped to have a souvenir of cute smiling photos, in heart shaped little frames, to remember our date to Florence. But that thought ended quickly, when the machine ate our 2 euros.  We sat there in disbelief.  “Does this city HATE us?!”... 

Jen began to have a short breakdown that I wont elaborate on.  I remember sitting on the bench just outside the famous Duomo church as she whined (sadly staring at her ridiculously expensive gelato), “there’s just too many little things, this place doesn’t liiiiike us.”  Oh man.  She was kind of right.

After our low point we bounced back.  We spent some time in the amazing Duomo church and caught some info from the passing tours.  We wandered the ancient Florentine markets. Jen tried on a leather jacket that made her look like a super hero and managed to let it go.  We left the city by a well deserved, complimentary bus ride (we couldn’t figure out how to pay for it). We found Yoshi at last and headed back to our beloved Montecatini; the town that likes us.  The day ended well as we were happy that the day ended happy. Desperately hungry, ignoring prices, we went to the fancy American Bar.  I ordered a fruit dish.  Jen ordered a caesar salad. I was surprised and laughed at myself when the fruit dish consisted of strawberries and yes, more gelato. :) Jen’s salad was delicious. We ended the day both tired and happy.    We had navigated a confusing city, managed to see some really cool sites in Florence (despite its cruel big brother tendencies), and I ate more ice cream than humanly plausible.  We were proud and smily.  Venni Vitti Vicci. :)

The drive back home to Montecatini!

 Our fancy outdoor lounge "American Bar"