For Tuesday morning, we woke up, packed up and headed to the Rome Train Station where we were booked on a high speed train to Florence, arriving around noon. The train was on time and just a few minutes from our hotel in Florence, so we dropped our bags and headed out to see the city.

The hotel had a terrible odor of sewer and after looking through reviews online there were a few other people complaining of the same over the months… so it wasn’t a new problem. Kegan diagnosed the problem the evening when we returned, that the toilet was syphoning the water from the trap of the bidet right next to it every time you flushed because it was installed wrong, causing sewer gas to permeate the entire hotel room and floor. So, every time we flushed, we refilled the bidet and covered it up with the thick bathmat and didn’t have any more problems…. but like, how hard would it have been for the hotel to figure that out after multiple bad reviews over a year timespan?? They just kept posting annoying responses to everyone that it was sometimes the city sewer and they couldn’t stop it and their staff worked hard to keep the hallways and rooms fresh… so was that lip service?…or are they really not smart enough to figure out the source? I thought about telling them…but then decided a language barrier and the chance for them to gaslight me and tell me it wasn’t their problem (when I knew I’d never stay there again anyway) wasn’t worth the potential frustration. ha Long live the sewer smell at the Market Urban Hotel Florence! ha

Anyway- out and about the town!

I wish I could say this wasn’t common graffiti in a LOT of places we visited this week. We saw a VERY large Ukranian support protest in Rome after dark that was pretty unsettling. The street was packed full, burning fires, signs and yelling chants…seemed like something out of history books… all against the US since it was the day after the Oval Office fiasco with Zelensky. There was fresh graffiti daily with similar sentiment to this every morning. Our European allies are not happy with us right now…and I can’t say I feel very differently than they do. Some of the news coming out daily doesn’t represent what I feel like America should stand for… just wanted to document it here to look back on from our future vantage point, whatever that may be….

Our first attraction in Florence was timed entry tickets into the Galleria dell’ Accademia where the Statue of David is displayed.

In the hall leading down to the David is one of Michaelangelo’s unfinished Pieta sculptures

After the David, we caught the last few minutes of a small obscure museum nearby that was a Museum of Pietre Dure – a craft of cut stones placed together and sanded smooth to create pictures and inlays.

Norah. was. hooked. She loved it. I’ve never seen a kid so into something like that. She looked at every picture, she looked analytically at all the old time tools to do it, sat and watched the 15 minute video showing a craftsman working on a piece. She walked away decidedly that she absolutely wanted to do that. We talked to her about starting small….not being THAT good at first, etc… haha So….we’ll see. Kegan and I are now on a path to figure out how you help a kid get started making inlay stone art….I’m 100% open to any ideas 🙂

Next up, we were due for some food and we walked past a wine window. Ironically, these windows were started in plague times as a way to still serve wine and products while slowing the spread of diseases.

So its no surprise that during Covid, a lot of restaurants unblocked their wine windows and they are making a comeback around the city.

We chose to have a full meal down in their actual restaurant instead of just wine and snacks outside.

So, so good. And 2 glasses of Chianti at lunch never hurts 🙂

After a full filling and long lunch, we headed to the Leonardo DaVinci museum dedicated to all of his inventions and experiments. Norah said it was her favorite museum of the trip because she could interact with everything.

This life size model of his 360 canon defense tank that he designed when he was trying to get the Grand Duke of Florence to hire him as his military advisor
The world’s first at home gym? Leonardo had drawings for a machine to work out muscles at home.

After the DaVinci museum, our walking path took us past the Duomo for the first time. Words cannot describe the grandeur of this structure. The sheer size, the volume of marble, the intricacies of the statues, the alcoves…it is just unbelievable standing there in person.

We walked past the famous Baptistry of San Giovanni doors- which Michaelangelo likened to “the Gates of Paradise”, designed by Lorenzo Ghiberti in 1452. (these are replicas placed now…but we DID see the originals the next day- you’ll see below) The 3D perspective effects of these gilded panels is mind blowing.

After admiring the outside of the Duomo and the Bapistry for a while, we continued on to the Piazza Signoria and got our first glimpse of the Palazzo Vecchio we would be touring later. A copy of the David statue still stands in front because the David was originally commissioned for the Medici family and stood in front of this palace.

We walked on to the Ponte Vecchio bridge to look out over the river Arno and show Norah the shops that lined the bridge.

We backtracked towards the Palazzo Vecchio and explored the sculptures in the Loggia dei Lanzi, including the famous Abduction of the Sabine Women by Giambologna for Cosimo the 1st de Medici

I thought I had pre-purchased a guided tour of the Palazzo Vecchio so I didn’t do a lot of research ahead of time, only to arrive, be called 15 minutes before my time to be told we were late and she was waiting for us (we weren’t late- double checked) and be handed tickets quickly, given a QR that she acted like I was too dumb to know how to work and then ran off. ha We just joked that she must have had to go to the bathroom. lol So… we began our SELF-guided tour of the Palazzo Vecchio- or “Old Palace” of Florence.

The people of Florence in 1299 decided to build a palace that would be safe in times of turbulence and worthy of the city’s importance.

Duke Cosimo 1 de Medici moved his official seat to this Palazzo Vecchio in 1540.

The Hall of the 500 from the top floor balcony overlook. In theory, there were large paintings here by Michaelangelo and DaVinci at one point in time before the Medicis that were replaced by these giant scenes of Florence battle triumph. Lost to time… Michaelangelo would have been commissioned to paint these works, but the Pope sent his guard to Florence to capture Michaelangelo and bring him back to Rome to paint the Sistine chapel, threatening Michaelangelo that he would start a war with Florence if he refused to return. (Kinda makes sense now why he painted a big giant bare bum right where the Pope would look up to say prayers….and why he painted over 100 naked men on his giant alter piece that had to later be covered with some fabric in key areas to make it more palatable haha)
The Hall of Maps from the 1500s was my favorite here too. Designed by Giogio Vasari as a room of cabinets to hold valuables and curiosities…but finished with maps of the world drawn/painted by Egnazio Danti, who was later asked to paint the maps in the Gallery of Maps in Rome that we saw earlier! 57 cabinet doors, with the maps painted directly on the cabinet doors. The regions on the map corresponded to the origin of the items found inside the cabinets. Vasari originally intended for the room to have a false ceiling that would conceal 2 large globes that could be lowered and raised into the room.
There was a hole overlooking the Vasari staircase to see below to who was coming upstairs…
The Piazza Signoria where they held the famous Bonfire of the Vanities and where they hanged and burned Gorolamo Savonorola, the man who orchestrated the whole thing to begin with.
The beautiful fountain of Neptune in the plaza deserves its flowers. Designed in the mid-1500s, it celebrated the Medici’s “gift” of clean water to the city… and also to symbolize his marriage to the Grand Duchess of Austria.

Keeping with the clean water gift, right behind the Neptune fountain was a public drinking fountain that had the option of still normal water and water “gassata” – carbonated bubbly water!

Please ignore the absolutely terrible wide angle photo of me, its the only one i have! ha
I bet we filled up 6 bottles out of this fountain over two days. We all loved it. ha

We ended our night seeking out a good restaurant to splurge a bit and have Florentine steak while we were in Florence. The restaurant we found did not disappoint and we had the entire place to ourselves! Trattoria La Faltorona. If you go to Florence, I’d recommend to put this on your list.

The best carbonara we had ever had, with shaved black truffle
Norah’s fried seafood platter
Tiramisu..again.. (every meal for Norah lol) but this one was LEGIT the best Tiramisu any of us had ever had.

Wednesday we got to sleep in a bit as our first tickets didn’t start until 10am and the major Duomo and sites don’t even open until 10:30am. My kind of city 🙂

We grabbed our skip the line tickets from a guide standing in the Piazza and went first to see the Baptistry at his recommendation while we waited for the Duomo to open.

While waiting in line to enter, a gypsy woman approached us asking for money. Very persistent and glaring at Kegan in the eyes. He grabbed a 2 euro coin from his pocket and dropped it into her cup expecting her to move on… Except she didn’t. She started tapping him on his pocket asking for more! haha but it wasn’t aggressive, it was like cute grandma annoying… so I laughed. That made her laugh and she asked Kegan again, what else he had. He frustratingly was like, all I have it a piece of candy” (a lemon tea flavored hard candy that he likes to carry). She sees the candy, her eyes light up. “I take??” hahaha uhhh, sure, knock yourself out. She pops it in her mouth and walks away to harass other tourists. ha Enjoy your Arnold Palmer candy. ha

The Baptistry of St John was originally exactly that- where Florentine infants were brought to be baptized on Saturdays in the center of the building.

I missed being able to enter the baptistry on our last trip because I didn’t buy tickets in advance… and they were sold out. This trip I got the tickets, only to walk in and find the ENTIRE CEILING was covered in a tarp printed to look like the giant domed and gilded mosaic ceiling! errgghh. Why even have the dang thing open?

We were SUPPOSED to see the amazing gold mosaics covering the entire domed ceiling completed in the 1200s. 10 million mosaic pieces. Expected completion of the restoration isn’t scheduled to end until 2028…so plan accordingly.

Annoyed, but understanding, we headed into the main Duomo and decided to explore the crypts first before they got more crowded.

In the 1960s, archeologists worked to excavate the remains of many earlier churches on the same site including the original Roman temple and earlier christian churches, the most recent being the Santa Reparata Church, Florence’s first cathedral. Many knights, popes and other famous folks are buried here in the crypts including Filippo Brunelleschi- the designer and builder of the famous dome on top of the Duomo that towers over the city of Florence, 50 years before Leonardo DeVinci was even born…

The preserved Roman mosaics were amazing to see

Back upstairs in the main Duomo cathedral, we explored its gigantic basilica- one of the largest churches in the world.

After walking around the church, we headed behind the church to the Museum of the Duomo to see all of the original works of art that have been removed from the elements over the years and are being handled in a more controlled environment to preserve them for the future.

The REAL Gates of Paradise on display
Donatello’s Penitent Magdalene, originally stood in the Baptistry in the 1500s.
The original solid silver alter of silver and enamel from the Baptistry from the 1400s. The intricacy of this was just crazy…
From the top floor of the Museum, there was a terrace that provided a fantastic up close view of the dome of the Duomo.
Another of Michaelangelo’s Pieta sculptures was on display in the museum in its own room. This one was from later in his life.

Finishing up at the museum- which housed 3-4 floors of statues, relics, Pope robes, dome models and just SO much history, it was lunch time.

We decided on a board for two along with a bowl of lampredotto- a dish made from stewing the 4th stomach of the cow.

We spent the rest of our Florence afternoon at the Uffizi Gallery.

The Birth of Venus by Botticelli
Portaits of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino – the Sforza family from Milan, painted on wood from the 1400s.
Perseus Rescuing Andromeda by Piero di Cosimo
DaVinci’s Annunciation
Andrea del Verocchio and Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Baptism of Christ from 1475
Michaelangelo’s Doni Tondo (The Holy Family) The frame is original to the painting, likely designed by Michaelangelo himself too. Fun fact, this is Michaelangelo’s only free-standing painting known to still exist.
This Crespi painting really caught my eye for the amazing use of light. It looked just like a photograph in real life.
Portrait of Cosimo the Elder by Pontormo
Portrait of Cosimo I de’ Medici by Bronzino, the court’s painter.
A view of the Ponte Vecchio bridge from within the Uffizi
The head of Medusa by Caravaggio on a shield – since Perseus used a shield as a mirror to cut off Medusa’s head. It was given to Grand Duke Ferdinando de Medici as a gift.
Famous portrait of Galileo Galilei by Sustermans

Kegan thought this one looked like me…so I made him walk all the way back through the museum to get a photo of it for me. haha

This was a major highlight of the self-portrait gallery. A tiny round painting highlighted on a full blank wall. Its a self-portrait by Lavinia Fontana, an Italian artist- the first woman artist! I can live with having a likeness to the first pioneering woman of her field! 🙂

We didn’t even go out for dinner after the Uffizi, we drank wine and ate biscotti in our hotel room and chilled, packed up and to be ready to head to Venice the next morning.