First Two Days in Florence

With about two hours of sleep in the bag, I woke up to the alarm at 6 am. We got ready, packed some lunches and headed out the door for the Zug train station. It’s only about a 15 minute walk, so Ryan lugged the bags the whole way while I pushed Westin in the stroller with the carryon bags. At 7:31, we hoped on board the train destined to Milan, where we would then switch trains to get us to Florence.

The train ride went really well. The scenery through the Swiss Alps was breathtaking. I wish I could have looked out the window the entire time, but my attention was mainly focused on keeping Westin entertained and quiet.

We arrived in Florence at 1pm and went straight to our hotel, which was only about a 10 minute walk from the train station. Ryan used our Starwood hotel points for the week, so we stayed at the Westin right along the Arno River, two bridges down from the famous Ponte Vecchio.  Westin fell asleep in the stroller on the walk to the hotel, and stayed asleep for a good three hours. He certainly needed it after being up for two hours in the middle of the night.

While Westin slept, Ryan and I walked to the TI to get our Florence cards, which would cover all public transportation and entry fees into all the museums and churches we wanted to go to. We walked back  to the train station where we knew a TI was located, only to find out that it had just closed about 30 minutes before. Of course, it was Sunday. We should have known better. We looked at our map and found a couple other locations and had to hit three of them before we found an open one that would be able to redeem our online receipt for the card. The mouse chase turned out to be a happy accident in disguise – a hot one too – because it allowed us to get a good sense of the city.

I guess touching the boar's nose brings good luck... worth a shot.

After getting our cards, we walked north to San Marco Palazzo where we caught the #7 bus to Fiesole. Fiesole is a small town just outside of Florence; about a 20 minute bus ride with no traffic. Once you get out of the busy city, the rest of the drive is quite pleasant. There are beautiful, spacious homes throughout the hillside, leading up to Fiesole.

I had been to Fiesole eight years ago with the Philpotts, and thought I remembered more than I actually did. Once we got to Fiesole, it took me a minute and then asking the bus driver, exactly where we needed to go to find the church and the view. He pointed us in the right direction and we were on our way. I remembered there was a bit of a hill to climb, but I had forgotten how steep it was. It was steep. Ryan and I took turns pushing Westin up in the stroller. Major glute workout. Made me feel better about the pasta dinner later that night. Anyway, back to the hill. We finished the climb (walk) and reached our reward – the view of Florence… and a nice breeze. The view was beautiful. We sat for a little while and just looked out at the landscape around us. Even Westin was impressed. He kept saying, “mom, there’s the whole world!”

After cooling off in the shade, we walked a little further uphill to an old church. Not a ton to see there, so we walked back down the hill and found our way to the Roman Theater and Archeological site. We walked around the grounds and tried to explain to Westin what we were looking at. He didn’t really care. He had made a new friend at the entrance (an employee who let him water some plants with a hose). So all he wanted to do was go tell his new friend what he had seen. To Westin’s disappointment the man was no longer watering plants. Instead, he was in the small museum. We ventured inside, mainly to cool off, and Westin went right up to something and touched it. Simultaneously, the man and I both simi-yelled at Westin to stop, which he did. However, the man felt inclined to take it a step further (I think he had good intentions of being playful, but it did not elicit that response). The man started to tell Westin that if he touched something, he would have to get out his stick… the guy didn’t even finish his scare tactic before Westin was in tears. Scratch that. Before he was sobbing and horrified. (Didn’t help that the man was not very attractive.) It seriously took us about 15 minutes to calm Westin down and convince him that the man was only teasing. Didn’t matter, Westin was over his new friend and didn’t want anything to do with him. Time to go.

We arrived back in Florence around dinner time and ate at the Academia Restaurant. It had been a recommendation and gotten good reviews on TripAdvisor, but I’ll give it a three out of five stars. The bruschetta was fantastic, as was our salad (sharp cheese, pears, pine nuts, arugula, and honey).  However, the pastas were less than impressive. We later found out it was better for lunch – that’s when they serve pizza.

After dinner it was time to head back to our hotel. Since we were on the north end of the city still, we were able to enjoy a cooler walk through the city and the sunset along the Arno.

Monday was our first full-day in Florence. The big museums were closed, so we went to the Duomo, did a Rick Steves walking tour and meandered through the Boboli Gardens at the Pitti Palace.

The Duomo is magnificent; an incredibly detailed architectural design. They just don’t make things like it anymore. Ryan walked around the Duomo listening to Rick Steve’s audio tour, while Westin and I looked at the horses and pretended to play baseball (we got plenty of looks – I’m sure people thought we were crazy). I then had Ryan tell me everything Rick Steves talked about. Afterwards, we went inside the Duomo and over to the Duomo museum.

For lunch, we walked a couples blocks off the beaten path to L’Antico Noe, a sandwich shop Mandy had recommended. We loved it. The sandwiches were delicious and cheap. We actually went back the next day for another round.

After lunch, we let Westin play on the ipad, Ryan and I both listened to another audio tour as we walked through Florence looking at all the big sites. After that was over, we were pretty hot and all in need of a break, so we decided to walk back to the hotel for a little while. The hotel was in a great location, so we didn’t have to walk out of the way much.

Playing baseball in Palazzo Vecchio

In the afternoon, we crossed the Arno and went into Oltrarno where we had gelato and the Boboli Gardens. We then had dinner at Antico Borga, a small restaurant in the quiet Palazzo San Spirito a few blocks from Pitti Palace. We ended up sitting next to two Austrians who shared with us their opinions of Americans – made for some interesting and entertaining conversation.

We finished the evening with a walk over Ponte Vecchio and back through the streets of Florence, where we listened to street music and let Westin ride a courosel.