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!
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.
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.
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 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.
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!
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.
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?
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…
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.
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 spent the rest of our Florence afternoon at the Uffizi Gallery.
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
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.
