Firenze, Florence

Finally, after our train ride from Venice, we arrived in Firenze, Florence. We arrived around 930 pm Tuesday night and made our way to the Airbnb we had booked. The host met us outside of our apartment. It was located in an old building in the leather district. Our actual host wasn’t there so their parents showed us around the apartment, providing us with details of the surrounding area, wi-fi and apartment details. We stayed in The Smallest Hostel of Florence 2. It was a very quirky, fun and clean apartment.

Duomo

Melanie and I wanted to explore a little bit and wanted to get a snack before bed. Being so close to everything we found a pizza place quickly and ordered a veggie pizza with hot pepperoni to share. We took a few night pictures with the Duomo and headed back to our apartment.

The Leather District

The next day we woke up at a reasonable time and got ready for the day. Our Airbnb host was gracious enough to allow us to keep our suitcases there until our train later in the evening. We didn’t have a list of much we wanted to see in Florence, it was more about the eating. =] When the Airbnb host said we were in the leather district, they weren’t kidding. Right around the corner from our apartment… maybe 500 steps away, was the huge outdoor leather market.

We walked through just looking at a lot of the stalls knowing we would be back later in the day. There is also a big 2 story indoor market. On the bottom floor, we found everything from fresh fruit to flowers to butchers and much more. And you know I HAD to buy some fruit, it looked so fresh and ripe. I paid for my strawberries and then we made the decision to find bubble tea. Very UN-Italian of us. Later we discovered that the top floor of the covered market was booming with loads of bistros.

We made it to the bubble tea place and both ordered the classic Taro bubble tea. I would not recommend bubble tea in Italy. Although the tea wasn’t my favorite we ended up stumbling across a small museum with statues and gardens. It was beautiful.

Melanie pulled out her google maps and we started on our way to The Ponte Vecchio, or “Old Bridge”. (And I attempted to use an “old” map)

Lunch

But of course, being us and being all about eating as much Italian food as possible, we found somewhere to eat lunch first. In a beautiful square near the museum holding the statue of David, we found an outdoor restaurant.

We ordered some yummy food to share and enjoyed the atmosphere. Here we ate spaghetti Carbonara, salad and bruschetta. We really enjoyed our meal here, the waiter was nice and the location was pretty. We took a few pictures in the area after eating and then continued our walk to The Ponte Vecchio.

Along the way we stumbled across another market, I believe this was the old market. They had a statue of a boar with water running out of his mouth. This is known as Il Porcellino. It is said that if you put a coin in his mouth and it drops into the drain below it you will have good luck. It is also said to be lucky if you rub his snout… we did both.

Ponte Vecchio

Finally, after stopping in a few other stores we made it to Ponte Vecchio. It is a bridge that has stores built-in along the road with apartments above them. We walked through the street admiring the stores and bridge before walking to the bridge next to it so we could take pictures of Ponte Vecchio.

We got some gelato first then walked to the bridge. I had Nocciola (hazelnut) which is my favorite and cheesecake, I can not remember what flavors Melanie had but it was all delicious.

Leather Market

We’d seen everything we wanted to and just wanted to make one more stop at the leather market. I bought a few leather bracelets and magnets and Melanie bought an Italian plate. We picked up our luggage and proceeded to the train station.

After a little bit of hassle, we were able to change our train tickets to leave earlier. We paid a small fee for changing them, but there was no point hanging around Florence when we’d explored all we wanted and could get to Rome early. So we were off to Rome, one of the locations I had been to for sports.