That's right we have arrived in Florence! And as is now usual for us......we arrived late. It's just so difficult to leave some of those other beautiful places behind! We had to call our B&B before we got on the train to tell them that we will be late. They said it would be no problem. We arrived at the station around 10pm and started looking for a bus that would take us to the B&B. We could not find the right bus stop, even thought the B&B provided us with the needed bus numbers. After walking around in a circle for about 15 minutes we got out the GPS and decided to walk there! Yes there we were again pulling suitcases through the streets of an unknown city at night. BUT Florence is not like other cities. There were people out and about everywhere. Locals and tourists, eating, talking, walking, just living. We loved the atmosphere from the very beginning! The walk to the B&B was LONG and we were already tired from walking around Venice all day. So once we got there we just crashed.
Our B&B - Residenza Il Villino - was really charming. It is located in a building which is a renovated 19th century palace and consists of some private apartments as well as the B&B. Getting up in the morning was tough. We were still really exhausted from Venice. Thank God for strong Italian coffee! In fact, the coffee worked so well that it made Steve jittery for a while.
We had tours scheduled for Florence the next day so for now we decided to just take it easy and walk around the city to see what we can find. And find we did! Florence is beautiful and "wise". I know that it might be strange to say that about a city but it's the atmosphere that you feel when you walk through Florence. You are surrounded by history and art. Florence is where the Renaissance was born. Historically it is a city of "cloth and leather" which is still true today. There are leather stores everywhere and some of the biggest names in fashion such as Emporio Armani can also be found throughout the city.
The main cathedral in Florence (Doma). We had a tickets to go in here the next day with our tour group.
Exploring Florence :)
There were some increadable statues under these arches.
Both Steve and I like to get away from the tourist areas and explore little side streets and local areas. We find a lot of interesting things that way. Getting "lost" like that is really fun and adventurous!
We found some gardens with interesting art.
And we ventured outside the city walls
Sometimes we needed to find our location
We got to top of the hill for a beautiful overlook of the city of Florence
We even found this replica of David at top of the hill!
Of course we stopped for some gelato! The day would not be complete without it :)
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