Thurs 4th Sept
Our Florence Apartment: here and here
The first 95% of our drive from Arenzano to Florence went without a hitch. It was just the last 5% that took a bit of a toll on all of us. Finding our parking garage and, then, convincing the parking attendant that we both had reserved parking took quite a bit of finessing. The parking garage was located in the ZTL, the restricted zone, and not far from the Ponte Vecchio, so you might be able to image how congested and narrow the access streets were. Both our cars had to do a 3-point turn type manoeuvre just to enter the street where the garage was located. It all ended up being ok but we were very relieved shortly after when we hit Piazza Santa Spirito for our apperitivo and threw back our first drinks!
Oh, did I mention our apartment was a big winner? With all the stress of our arrival I think I forgot to make a note. Well, it was! Mark even commented that he thinks this is the best accommodation I have ever sourced! A huge call indeed! The apartment was located in a 16th century magnificent Palazzo building, Palazzo Lanfredini, right on the Arno that has been renovated and partitioned off into a few separate spaces. Our particular apartment was a beautifully decorated modern space with 4 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms and a large lounge, dining kitchen area. The biggest wow factor though was the amazing large terrace, with views out across the Duomo, and the evening lights made this vista exceptionally spectacular. We might not ever leave!
We changed dinner bookings at the last minute and think it was for the best as it was conveniently located, right next to our building, and the meal was delicious. The doorman of our Palazzo, Stefano, had recommended Oltrarno to us and we might end up there again, if only for the cloth napkins. If we do, that would be a nod back to 2007 where we dined at the same Florence restaurant three nights running! This was primarily because we had found a restaurant where Tom would eat the food.
We were all exhausted after our day of travel, and the added trauma of parking, and pondered over dinner whether we might just stay put for our 4 full days in Florence, and not venture out by car one day to visit Lucca as previously planned. That would be just fine by me.
Fri 5th Sept
It was an overcast start to the day but Mark and I set off early to have a walk. Florence was quite a busy place, even at 7 am, and I noted how much cleaner the city seemed to be compared to previous visits. Those visits had been prior to Covid though and I wondered in the pandemic had given the city authorities a new outlook on hygiene?
The Beany coffee app registered a favored coffee venue just a 2 minute walk from our apartment and so that is where we all gathered after our morning walk. Ditta Artiginale was a nice cafe indeed but they charged an extra €1.50 to sit inside which seemed a bit unfair. We’re not likely to return on that basis.
Matt and Annabelle took Teddy off, after our coffee, to help him ‘shake his sillies out’ before they ventured out for their 12.30pm reservation to see The David. I had slept poorly the previous evening so staying put at the apartment to mind Teddy during his sleep time was right up my alley!
Mark and I did a GPSmyCity tour of the southern side of the Arno in the afternoon, after Matt and Annabelle returned from seeing the David, and it was great. This took us through an area we hadn’t seen much of before and gave us a better perspective of the different neighbourhoods that make up greater Florence. One upside for Mark was that he’d been hankering for a Florentine Steak and we happened to pass a steak restaurant that looked lovely and rated well on Google. So that was now locked in for dinner in Monday. The upside of the tour for me was the mention of a particular gelato store and their famous cheesecake gelato, if you’re lucky enough to find it in stock that is. We found the shop easily and they did happen to have the cheesecake gelato on offer and I can attest to the fact that it is absolutely delicious!
Annabelle and Matt went for a meal at Osteria del Cinghiale Bianco but unfortunately the restaurant didn’t take children so Mark, Teddy and I took another one of our doorman Stefano’s recommendations and headed to La Bussola for a pizza dinner. Whilst I was impressed that the restaurant had cloth napkins, I should’ve been alerted to the fact that pizza restaurants usually don’t have to offer serrated knives. These implements were sorely needed though because the pizza bases were so tough it was actually hard cutting through them, even with the serrated knife; and it wasn’t just Mark and myself that struggled. I noticed that a big strong German guy on the table beside us was also heaving into his pizza with a back-and-forth action using his serrated knife as well. Needless to say, the pizzas weren’t much of a hit with us but luckily Matt and Annabelle had a great meal on their outing. We were all pretty tired from our day, for various reasons, and the heat, whilst a pleasant change from Sydney weather, added to this toll so we all had a relatively early night.
Sat 6th Sept
It was a glorious morning and Mark started the day with a bike ride and I took a walk before we all met up at this hole-in-wall type of cafe in the little lane behind our building. The coffee wasn’t quite as good as yesterday’s but at €1.50 per cup, no one was complaining!
Mark and I had a 10 am Renaissance and Medici Tales walking tour and this was quite good for refreshing our memory about the history of Florence, the Medici family and Michelangelo’s connection to both. It was a pleasant way to spend two hours on this very warm and busy Saturday morning. We had lunch on the south bank of the Arno afterwards before heading back to the apartment for a rest.
It was after 5 pm before we all ventured back out and were lucky enough to catch some of the dragon boat festival that was running on the Arno this weekend. We then drifted on to our early dinner booking at Trattoria 4 Leoni and this turned out to be great. Mark finally got to try a Florentine steak and it was delicious; we shared one between the four of us and had trouble finishing. This would be a restaurant I’d recommend but there are so many in this side of the Arno you can really take your pick.
Sun 7th Sept
It was another glorious morning and we woke to find 2 hot air balloons floating in the air right above our apartment. This was an absolute delight for the youngest member of our household who kept venturing out to the balcony to check on their progress.
It was the first Sunday of the month, so many Florence museums offered free entry and we were expecting quite a lot of chaos throughout the city. Mark started the day with a bike ride and I went out for a walk with a detour to queue for free tickets to the Pitti Palace.
We all met up later at 9 o’clock to queue for the opening of Cafe Vivoli, an Instagram famous cafe known for its signature affogato. I wasn’t sure about having ice cream and coffee for breakfast but I’m glad I did because it was a taste sensation and absolutely delicious. I don’t know if it was because I was hungry, or because of the gelato they used or the coffee but it went down a treat with me and everyone.
We left Cafe Vivoli to head to the San Lorenzo food markets only to find that they weren’t open on a Sunday, just the flea market area was open. Our plan had been to buy some produce to have dinner at home but it looked like that idea would have to be shelved.
Mark and I spent the middle part of the day exploring the 15th Century Pitti Palace, the third main residence of the Medici family in Florence. We strolled through their former ‘apartments’ but this was a bit of a misleading expression. The rooms were empty of furniture and the walls were entirely covered with works of art; they weren’t set up as how the Medici’s had lived and used the space but it was still worthwhile visiting. We had heard on our walking tour that there was apparently one room set up in the Palace showing how Eleanor Medici had lived, and this room was connected to the elevated private walkway her husband, Cosimo Medici, had created for her that extended from this Palace all the way across the Arno and through to Palazzo Vecchio, but sadly this room wasn’t available for viewing today.
There was a history of fashion exhibition on the floor above the apartments and this was excellent and well worth the time to explore. We also walked through the modern art gallery but I was a bit overloaded by this stage and keen to sit down. I’d walked 10 km and 14,000 steps already and was quite tired so we went and sat in the cafeteria to rest for a bit. The third and final part of our Pitti Palace visit was the Boboli Garden. This was an extensive and quite magnificent garden but all I could feel as we wandered around was disappointment. Disappointment that this garden was not made into public space and available for all the inhabitants of Florence. There is very little green space available in the city and to have this huge garden, so close to the city, secluded as part of a museum seemed very cruel.
It was almost 6 pm before we all headed out again and in search of a place for dinner. We settled on Gusto Osteria, which was lovely, and followed this up with a gelato visit to Gelateria La Carraia, the place with the great cheesecake gelato which, for consistency sake, still tasted amazing. It had been another full and great day.
Mon 8th Sept
It was our last full day in Florence and, being a Monday, many museums and shops were closed so that was factored in to our planning. Our morning started with a walk to Cafe Gilli to try their famed hot / iced chocolate which only Annabelle ordered. The verdict was that it tasted like Nutella but at least it got us out for a walk and to a new venue. We separated shortly after the cafe visit with Mark and myself heading to the Basilica Sant Maria Novella and Matt, Annabelle and Teddy went on to the food markets to buy produce for their dinner before Matt returned his rental car to the airport.
Santa Maria Novella is a huge basilica with extensive grounds and we learned, via the accompanying audio guide, that it was founded in the 14th century by the Dominican order to help counteract heresy. The Dominicans’ cruel treatment of heretics and behavior during the crusades is well documented so it was rather unsettling to walk the magnificent Basilica, admiring the beauty and majesty of the place, with all of that dark period running through the back of my mind. Trying to put that aside though, the sheer scale of magnificent frescoes inside the Basilica, in the many chapels and on all of the walls of the enormous cloister was just mind boggling. We had visited Varenna and admired the amazing frescoes in that city and those of this Basilica were right up there with them. Even if you are not spiritual / religious it is worth the visit just to take in the frescoes; they are just beautiful.
Annabelle and I later took advantage of Teddy’s sleep time to visit the Salvatore Ferragamo Museum which was well worthwhile. Some interesting facts about him are that he was the 11th of 14 children and had always wanted to design shoes. One of his brother was involved in the film industry so Ferragamo got an early boost to his career by making shoes for the movies and many movie stars. He also studied anatomy to assist with his shoes design and was an all-around inventor with patents in other fields of endeavor, such as defense. The museum was well laid out and signposted but also comes with an audio guide making for easy navigation around the space and is an experience I would recommend. We headed home after that to get sorted before our departure tomorrow for Rome.
It was 5 pm before Mark and I ventured out again and there one more activity I was keen to complete and that was a visit to a wine window. Wine windows have been around Florence since the 16th century and were initially created as way to sell wine from your home whilst avoiding paying tax but they were also important during the period of the Black Death as a safe way to buy and sell wine. They’ve had a new lease on life since 2015 when an association was developed to help preserve their history and that’s why you may see your Instagram feed flooded with influencers at one of the over 100 wine windows around Florence Old Town. This article has a map showing the location of wine windows across Florence with just some of them now operating as functioning wine windows; many have been converted to other uses, for example, intercom systems. We were lucky enough to have a wine window in the lane behind our building and so this is the one we visited. The Babae wine window was one of the first to be regenerated and was very popular. Each time we’d been down there there was an enormous queue and tonight was no different. So we had to settle with sitting in the attached wine bar and watching those getting their wine window fix. It was all a bit underwhelming really as we didn’t even get any ‘snakes’ with our drinks!
We went for dinner at Osteria del Cinghiale Bianco, the place that Matt and Annabelle went to on our second night in Florence, and I have to say it was a bit underwhelming as well. There was an enormous queue here as well, mostly loud Americans, and we were shuffled in like cattle and treated much the same except without cattle prods. Our bruschetta was only ok but the pasta Cinghiale was lovely as was Marks roast pork meal. I was a tad annoyed to see a couple next to us with their baby in a high chair and another family with a toddler when we’d clearly been told that no children were allowed in the restaurant and they didn’t have any high chairs so maybe that clouded my overall judgement as well. It was all a bit rushed and we were home within the hour. It was a favorite restaurant with Stanley Tucci when he was in Florence though so maybe giving a go if you’re ever in Florence.
We had loved our time in Florence and it is definitely a city to which I would happily return. Our accommodation was very comfortable for our group and in an ideal location. I had reserved this on Booking.com but you can also reserve directly. We all leave on Tuesday morning to make our way to Rome; Matt, Annabelle and Teddy are catching the train and we are driving to Rome airport to return our rental car and then will make our way into the city by taxi. See you in Rome!