Category: European Trips

Well. I didn’t get up at 8 to go run. Or 8:30. Or 9.. it is what it is. I did get up at 9:30 and decided I’d run later, of course. Mom was already awake and had perfected the coffee maker and had a cup ready and waiting for me. We sat and sipped and sampled some little pastries Andrea left us.

We got dressed and went to pick up my leather jacket around 11, we brought it back to the room and then hoofed it across town to the Gallery of the Academy of Florence, where the statue of David stands. We met up with our tour group and I was almost immediately annoyed. Our group was literally only 7 people, but one man.. ONE MAN.. was ruining it. He kept interrupting the tour guide, Natalie, mid sentence with a random question having nothing to do with anything she was talking about. It didn’t help my irritation any that it was crowded and getting hot-like low 80s.

We made it inside and through 2 rooms before getting to David. Mom and I walked around, got our pictures, took it all in-tried like hell to listen to Natalie, who was still getting her commentary cut off by this man.. so much so that other people couldn’t ask her anything at all, and that man kept getting close enough to her that we all heard everything he asked or said to her through the headsets. And I’m talking crazy things like, “well, we’re going to go to this other museum, is it easily accessible? How long of a walk is it to get there? How long with that take us?” Like how in the hell is this woman supposed to know how long it’s going to take YOU to walk somewhere? Sheeeeesh.

So, for the first time in my life, I turned my headset in early (Mom’s too, although she had turned hers off a long time ago lol), and Mom and I carried on through the museum without the tour. We escaped the crowded museum and started down one of the roads. We passed yet another (more like 400, but somehow this one seemed special) leather shop that Mom just had to go into. She spotted a purse she loved and after talking with the lady awhile we decided to go eat lunch and if she was still thinking about the purse, we’d come back and get it after we ate..

Which is exactly what happened. We ate at a restaurant with outdoor seating beside the big cathedral. We shared a caprese salad and a pizza. I tried the famous Aperol Spritz.. I’m not a fan. I’ll stick to wine from here on out. lol After we ate we went back to the purse shop and got mom her gorgeous leather purse, shes still giddy over it!

We walked back to our room, and she swapped out her purses and we put on dresses for dinner. As we walked out Mom spotted a hair salon and asked the lady if she’d wash and style our hair.. and boy did she! Mom was so happy to finally have her hair styled nicely-we bought a curling iron but it doesn’t quite work the way we thought it would and the hair dryers aren’t quite strong enough-that or we don’t have the patience-to get our hair the way we like it.

Once our hair was curled, we started our journey to locate the great smelling restaurant from yesterday. It only took us an hour and a half to find it.. some of that was because we’d pop in and out of a store here and there.. but mostly because I just couldn’t find it-until I did. The host sat us in the garden and it was already off to a better start than yesterday. I had my wine, Mom got a coke-and the waiter put ice in a wine glass for her, lol! So, we cheers’d my Chianti Classico and her Coca-Cola Classico in a fit of giggles!

Our main meal was awesome.. Mom had some type of ravioli like noodles stuffed with potatoes and covered with a meat sauce (phenomenal) and I had spaghetti carbonara (also phenomenal). I knew mom loved it because I only got to try a bite 🤣 My spaghetti noodles were fatter than a noodle from home, and I am here for it! It was delicious! We were so full from eating every bite of our dinner that we couldn’t even attempt desert.

We slowly meandered back to the room around 10:30. I changed my clothes and got my run in and then started a load of laundry when I got back. We attempted to watch TV, but there wasn’t anything in English and this remote isn’t as fancy as the one in the hotel, so it wouldn’t swap the language for us. I was too tired to read subtitles. Mom went to bed while I’m sitting here waiting on my laundry to finish so I can put it into the dryer before going to sleep. It feels like it’s taking a lifetime!

We have an early morning tomorrow.. we have a full day trip to Cinque Terre, the National park on the northwestern coast of Italy. There are 5 towns that are connected by tiny roads, steep hiking trails, and trains. I’m so very excited! It’s probably going to be another trip highlight, for sure!

Today was GLORIOUS! I slept in until almost 11:30 and I regret nothing! When I woke, I heard Mom in the shower and decided to just lay there for awhile. No point in rushing to get up if she’s going to style her hair and take her time.

We finally got moving around 12:30.. we walked back to that sandwich shop from the first day we were here-and stood in line to order. It was busy!We got our drinks (wine for me, a Coke Zero for mom), and our numbered ticket for our food, and mom snagged us a spot at the bar to sit. About 20-30 minutes later, we got our sandwiches and they were just as good today as they were before, if not better!

We ate and people watched the crowd and then walked back to the apartment to get some clothes and things to ship home, to lighten our load. We gathered it all and walked about 10 minutes in the opposite direction, taking note of all the stores, shops, and restaurants we’d missed by never walking this way before!

The shipping store charged us €140 to ship back a 30lb box of stuff-clothes, shoes, water bottles.. surely not enough to weigh 30lbs-but alas, I saw the scale. Thank goodness! This should definitely make our travel day tomorrow easier on us! Once we paid and got our tracking information, we went back into the dress shop we passed earlier. Many of these Italian stores have “one size” dresses and skirts. They don’t say “one size fits all” or “one size fits most” like at home-it’s just “one size” and hope for the best lol

The dresses in the one size don’t quite fit me right, the top is too stretched, but the skirts shockingly did fit, so I got a couple (since they’re so lightweight anyway, it shouldn’t add much weight back to my bag-I hope!). We returned my skirts and mom’s suitcase (that’s how she toted her clothes and shoes she shipped) back to the room, again, knocked out those 50 stairs, and then walked to the other side of the river to see about getting our nails done.

The ladies working said they were booked, but if we’d be willing to come back at 6:15 this evening (2.5 hours from now), they’d stay open for us. So, we wandered around, had coffee on a patio, looked at clothes and souvenirs, had a vintage wine tasting (one wine was from 1969, one was from 1980, and the last was from 2009) and then finally made our way back to the nail salon at 6:10. They promptly got to work on our fingernails, and an hour later we had freshly painted nails that didn’t look like claws anymore. We were so grateful!!

We went back to the room for the millionth time today and changed into our dinner clothes.. I wore one of my new skirts, mom had on a pretty dress she got the other day in Cinque Terre. We started walking towards the restaurant a friend from Kennestone, Mercy, told us about. When we found it, the line out of the building was so long we couldn’t even get to the door to have a peek inside! A little disheartened, we walked around some more and eventually found another restaurant that looked good. Because of Mercy’s recommendation, we were determined to have Florentine steak for dinner!

After lots of consideration, we ended up ordering the special.. we shared the T-bone steak with potatoes, plus bruschetta as an appetizer (with bread and olive oil, duh), and we each got our own desert. All for €50! The bruschetta with my wine was phenomenal. We watched the chef come get a hunk of meat from a refrigerator on display, toss it on his shoulder (with a towel laid out like a baby’s burp cloth) and lug it back to the kitchen.. impressive.

When our waiter brought out the steak, we didn’t realize he was going to put on a show of cutting it for us and then sprinkling salt, pepper, and oil on the pieces. We ordered it medium, for me, and then once mom got what she wanted on her plate, they took hers back to cook it a little longer for her. I’m here to tell you, that may have been my most favorite, flavor filled steak I’ve ever eaten in my entire life! It was so damn good. Not to mention the grilled potato wedges. As I’m writing this, completely miserably full and in considerable pain, my stomach just did a little growl thinking about it! There ain’t no dang WAY I’m actually hungry!

As a matter of fact, when he brought out our tiramisu, I thought I’d just keel over a die right there! I’m still shocked I was able to eat it at all, but of course I shoveled it all in my mouth just the same. And for the record, as good as this tiramisu has been, my Aunt Shannon’s is better. Anyway, as I was sitting there, thinking about how miserable my mile run will be tonight, I decided I’d set an alarm for the morning and knock out my run for tomorrow early-no more of this running at 11pm just barely making it happen!

So, when we got home, I ran my mile.. and I watched the videos that my friend Brittany sent me for some in room workouts-I was so full, some of them I could barely do at all, let alone more than once. But I at least attempted them all with the idea that I’d do the workout after my run in the morning. Mom and I started the last of our laundry, and we headed off to bed.. where I’m forcing myself to stay awake to write this, and I’m so happy it’s done so I can close my eyes and sleep every second until my alarm goes off at 7am. We leave for Venice tomorrow and have to check out of the Airbnb at 10am. Something tells me Andrea will be very punctual in his arrival for the keys 🙂
Goodnight!

Since I booked us an afternoon train to Florence, we didn’t have to rush this morning. We went down to the breakfast buffet to get our fill before coming back to the room to shower and pack. We checked out of our hotel at noon and started the slow walk with our luggage to the metro station. It’s like everything expanded overnight! This stuff was definitely not this heavy the other day!

We made it to our train station and platform without issue and waited for our 1:20 train to come. We did almost get on the 12:50 one since we were there so early, but thankfully we didn’t. Not sure if it would have been a problem or not, but I don’t want to find out. I’ve read horror stories online of people getting charged €50-75 for not validating their tickets and things like that. Who knows what they’d charge if they realized we got on an earlier train (that has assigned seats).

Speaking of, this train claimed to have WiFi, too, but it wouldn’t connect. So I read my book and worked on the blog. It look less than 2 hours to get to Florence. We got off the train and made our way outside. What a beautiful city even from this busy spot! We decided on a taxi to get to our Airbnb instead of walking, there’s not a bus or subway here to take us any closer to our Airbnb, and it’s almost a mile walk on uneven cobblestones.. which is fine normally, but not while toting some heavy luggage.

Our taxi driver got us right in front of our door, and the Airbnb host, Andrea (said like On-drey-ah), met us at the front door. We’re right in the heart of the city, 4-5 minute walk to the river and less than that to get to the Uffizi Gallery. It’s gorgeous! Andrea carried mom’s luggage up the 3 flights of stairs and I followed him.. whew, I guess I was complaining I needed more exercise! Hahaha, I started having flashbacks of running the stairs at work with Kristi one night that had me drenched in sweat after 3 minutes..

Our Airbnb is incredibly gorgeous! Two bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a living room with two small terraces, a full kitchen and a washer and dryer! It’s always exciting when the place exceeds your expectations and not the other way around! It was too soon to pick our rooms, we were overwhelmed with the views and hungry, too. So, we connected to WiFi and googled Andrea’s sandwich shop recommendations, and left the unpacking for when we return. Florence is known for having incredible sandwiches and we were ready to figure out why!

We decided on a shop that was a 4 minute walk from our apartment. As we walked out, we realized our place is next to a museum and across from a church with a huge bell tower.. which is an awesome way to locate our road! The sandwich shop was easy to find and the food itself was so dang good! The meat was stacked so thick and every bite was full of flavor. Don’t even get me started on the bread-the baked daily fresh bread.. ah. The guys working spoke Italian, English, and Spanish. They were cracking me up because they sang along with their playlist while they worked, songs came on in different languages, different styles-and man it was such a nice difference, seeing people enjoying their jobs. They just seemed happy. And with those sandwiches, we were happy, too!

We went exploring the cobblestone roads and stone store fronts. The building all looked to be very old, and so stunning. You could smell the leather in the air.. and then suddenly the tight roads and tiny alley ways would open up into a square or piazza filled with fountains and statues. It felt like a scene from a movie. We were in love!

We walked down a road next to the museums where people were selling their artwork.. many had prints of their work, but one man was actually sitting there painting with his watercolors. His work had beautiful scenes of Tuscan wineries and views of Florence from the waterway. I had to have one! I already know it will hang in my office with the watercolor painting I got from Paris in 2019 and the paintings from a man in Peru the year before that. I’m literally so fascinated by people and their talent, whether it be artists or musicians or performers. Maybe in my next life I’ll have some skill that blows people away with one look or listen (I think we all know it’s not going to be for my profound writing skills).

From there we walked along the water and snapped photos of the bridges connecting the two sides of the city. One of the leather stores ended up catching mom’s attention.. purses and jackets and wallets, oh my! The man, Marco, was quite the salesman. He asked if I’d like to see a jacket, I say no.. because I just saw the price on one beside me (€750).. he goes, “trust me, I have the perfect one for you..” yeah, ok-whatever. I say yes, fully expecting to not like what he picked for me.

He comes back with a camel colored leather jacket. The sleeves and hips have detailing on them, it’s a side zip with a pretty collar.. and, it is incredible! I think, no way will it look good on me though.. he zips it-spins me around, checks the sleeves, and then tells me he’d tailor it for me-the sleeves were a bit long. I’m starting to get sad, because I just know it’s going to be way too much money.. but Mom is asking him how much and it was no where near as expensive as the ones I had been seeing, like a fraction of the cost! Mom decided to get it for me as a gift, and I am still reeling over how much I love it! It felt weird to pay for it and leave it there with Marco, but he said he’d have it tailored tonight and ready in the morning for us to pick up.. Wow!

He even told mom he’d make her a completely custom jacket of her liking, if she’d tell him the specifics of the colors and details that she prefers-and it would be ready before we leave Florence, but it was getting hot in the shop and she was over it.. so she declined and we went on our way. At some point we found a shoe store that caught Mom’s eye, and she ended up picking out a pair of leather shoes she fell in love with. She tried them on and walked around and we couldn’t leave without them. We’ve been in Florence only a few hours and we’ve already bought all the leather things!

We took her new shoes back to the room and rested our feet while we looked for a place for dinner. We settled on one that had been recommended by our host and also had great reviews online. On our walk there, I got us a little lost and we passed a different restaurant that smelling amazing-but we kept going. We found our place and got a seat inside. It was a small place and the lady working was so kind.. but Mom didn’t quite love her food.. (I did, I think I’d love anything anyone here gave me..)

She ordered the walnut ravioli, I ordered the mushroom risotto. I knew she didn’t like hers because she actually asked for a bite of mine-and then let me share some with her! I loved her ravioli, although the walnut taste was a strong one.. she said it was too strong and tasted like dirt. I thought she was being a little dramatic 😉 We vowed to stop at any restaurant that smelled phenomenal from outside any time we cross one from now on.. and I promised I’d find that place we skipped tomorrow.

We walked around a bit more, and Mom got an ice cream (gelato in Italian) by the river while I ran my mile in a figure 8 by the water and across 3 bridges. It was so beautiful at night and less crowded than during the day.. although I was still bobbing and weaving.. plus the roads were well lit so I could watch my footing on the uneven cobblestones. It was one of my favorite runs so far, I need to learn to get up before I have to and get my runs in during the morning where there is plenty of sunlight, no crowds, and I can actually get more than a mile in because I haven’t just devoured my meal, some of Mom’s, a basket of bread and half a bottle of wine.. hmmm.. maybe tomorrow..

We leisurely walk back, enjoying the scenery, listening to the different languages of the people passing us-and hearing some music in the background being played by street performers. Such an absolutely beautiful city. Neither of us really wanted to go inside yet, but our feet are sore and we are tired, so we call it a night and head up our several flights of stairs. I let Mom pick her room, and then we start unpacking, showering, and getting into our pjs.

It’s been a wonderful day, I can’t wait to see what tomorrow has in store for us! The only thing planned is seeing the sculpture of David by Michaelangelo.. which I can’t wait to see in person.

And with that, Goodnight!