Florence: History and Culture

One of the only sites we saw repeatedly in Florence was the Duomo and Baptistery. I felt as if whenever we got lost we ended up at the Duomo. It was basically the center of town so as soon as we found ourselves there we could get back on course. The whole trip was a wonderful experience and Florence was definitely my favorite city.

We saw David at the Academia, toured the Uffizi gallery and took a walking tour of the city to get us oriented and familiar with what we were seeing. The tours were definitely worth the money. We did the Florence in One Day tour only we broke it up into two days with the Academia on Saturday afternoon and the walking tour and Uffizi tour on Sunday.



Here's a shot of the Arno river and the Old Bridge. There's actually a corridor on the top portion of the bridge where the Madici family used to travel from one building to another. This is the only Florintine bridge was saved by the Germans from bombing.



Now into the food. Joseph and I joined my friend Miranda (whom we were staying with in Lugano) and her friend Gavin for dinner the first night. We went to a place that was recommended by Gavin's guide book. It was a great place for our first official meal in Firenze.



I had a great meatball dish with mashed potatoes. I started with a yummy vegetable soup but forgot to take a picture. It was filled with spinach and different veggies. Joseph had a great looking steak (also not pictured).



The second day was filled with tours morning and afternoon so we had to grab a quick bite in between. We went with an easy to find place right in one of the main squares (I think it was in Piazza de la Republica because it was close to the tour office). I had a very yummy mushroom and cheese ravioli with a butter and sage sauce. It was to die for!



Joseph had a pesto pasta with tomatoes. This was also a very good meal. I shared his in between bites of mine and would have been happy choosing either dish. Both were very filling and kept us full until our late dinner (no pictures) at another restaurant in town that Rick Steve's recommended. I had a lasagna with bolenese sauce and Joseph had some more beef. The lasagne was very interesting. It was basically just haphazardly layered lasagne noodles with sauce in between. Not the typically layering you'd find in an American lasagna.