The second stop on our 15 day vacation extravaganza was Florence, Italy. Still riding the momentum gained from the 2 previous days in New York City, Lacey and I were ready to start the international leg of our trip. With our pre-purchased museum tickets in one hand and vouchers for a Vespa tour in the other; we were ready for Florence!
The last 2 times I’ve flown to Italy, I didn’t sleep a single minute on either flight. This results in a hyper-delirious first day as I end up being awake for about 20hrs straight. Luckily, Italy has the best coffee on the planet (yeah, I said it! Whatchu got Colombia!?), so I’m usually still somewhat functional that first day.
We landed and were settled in our Air BnB in Florence by about 3pm. We were set up in a beautiful 1 bedroom loft a block away from the Piazza del Duomo. We’d highly recommend staying there if you’re planning a visit. Tell Frederica we said hello!
After dropping our bags off and doing our best to avoid passing out, we met a few of our friends at a nearby cafe. We quickly hammered a couple of cafe Americano’s before hopping on some bicycles to check out the Ponte Vecchio, and the Piazza Michelangelo where we had some gelato while enjoying the views of the city. After a fun downhill bike ride from the piazza we had some delicious pizza and wine from GustaPizza before passing out for the night. It was a pretty successful first day considering how tired we were.
Day 2 in Florence got off to a quick start, literally, as we hopped on some Vespas and took off for wine country! The scooter tour was Lacey’s idea and I’ll hand it to her, I originally thought this was a lame idea but it turned out to be one of the highlights of the entire trip. Well done wifey, well done. Not only was the simple act of hauling ass on a Vespa in Italy super fun, but we saw so many amazing views of the city and country side. We made quick stops at a gorgeous church and private vineyard before making our way to a private estate where an authentic Italian meal was prepared for us. The meal was accompanied by some tasty wine grown from the vineyard we had visited. This was so much fun, as you can see from our trip video edit.
Later that day, we climbed to the top of the historic Duomo in Florence. The views from the top are unbelievable! Be careful though as there is only a waist-high fence in between you and certain death at the top of the dome. Other than that, it’s a really good time! 😉
Our third and final day was spent touring the amazing art galleries of Florence. After all, Florence was the heartbeat of the Renaissance and we owed it to the city to acknowledge it’s beautiful art. We swung by the Galleria dell’Accademia to check out Michelangelo’s statue of David before heading over to the Ufizzi Gallery to take a look at Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. While we may not know much about art, we still appreciate how important these pieces are to the history of this region. People treat famous artwork like celebrities nowadays. Everyone pushes and shoves to get close enough to take their all-so-important selfie with the painting or statue. Somehow that factor makes seeing pieces like these in-person both better AND worse somehow.
Our final night in Florence was a mellow one spent at our cozy BnB as we watched Netflix (The Office) on my cell phone as we fell asleep. There couldn’t have been a more perfect ending to a great 3 days in Florence.
Rome was up next! More details from that trip to come shortly!
For details on how we used reward points to book this 15 day adventure for free, check out our previous post.
