Florence/Firenze
On September 9, 2020 by SheilaFrom Venice, we took a high-speed train to Florence. The train ride was about two and a half hours (Santa Lucia to Santa Maria Novella). Then we took a very short taxi ride to our hotel, Granduomo. We walked around in circles a few times looking for the entrance to the hotel. The entrance was easily over looked with all the tourists milling about and the souvenir stands all around the Piazza del Duomo. Although our hotel was in an extremely touristy area, the front desk clerk did not speak much English. Luckily, my Duolingo/phrasebook Italian kicked in enough to check us into the hotel.
The room was another apartment style room that overlooked a courtyard. It had a tiny kitchenette that was stocked with essentials and some pastries. We explored the small hotel and discovered the library that overlooked the Duomo!
After checking out the hotel, we started checking out the area around us and headed towards Mercato Centrale. Mercato Centrale is an amazing food hall/market. Since we got to Florence late in the day, a lot of the market shops were closing down, but the restaurants were still open. We did a loop of the shops before we settled on fresh made pasta bolognese fresh anchovies. We did not eat too much since we still had dinner planned.
For dinner, we walked to Ristorante Sant’ Ambrogio. This was one of our favorite restaurants on our trip. We stayed several hours until the restaurant closed. Our waiter was fantastic and very interactive with us. He recommended a regional wine to try–Brunello di Montalcino. We ordered a charcuterie tray that was enough for eight people. It came with a truffle honey that was to die for! For our main course, Ben and Deanna split a Florentine steak and I had the cacio e pepe pasta. Cutie Pie had the t-bone with the fat.
At the end of our slow dinner, our waiter brought Ben and I limoncello shots. This one was a little smaller than the first one we had. I managed to finished it this time. But, woooo was it strong! Ben’s big thing while in Florence was to have a Florentine steak and a Fernet Branca (something about Batman…). The waiter let us try a chocolate liquor from Torino, the region he was from. That was delicious!
cutie pie florentine steak
Although, we left the restaurant late, the streets were pretty well lit and there were plenty of people heading out to start their night. We stopped at a gelato shop right next to our hotel. I do not know how we fit in multiple scoops of gelato after that dinner, but we did. The Piazza del Duomo was deserted at this late hour. We walked around the Duomo a couple of times and admired the greatness of the building without the annoyance of other tourists. You know I would not be able to enjoy ice cream/gelato without dripping it all over myself. So, that happened, right down the front of my jacket.
Early the next morning, we crammed into tight stairwells to get to the top of the Duomo. I can’t remember how long it took to get to the top, but there were a lot spots where we had to stop to let the other direction come down before we could move up. Once we got to the top, the view was breathtaking. It was a beautiful, sunny morning. We could see for miles/kilometers.
After that strenuous morning hike, we needed food. We loved Mercato Centrale so much that we went again for a quick brunch. We toured the first floor shops and picked up some snacks: cured sausages and wedges of Parmesan cheese. For brunch, we got a fresh made pizza. It was sooo good! The best pizza of the trip so far.
That was our last meal in Florence. We headed for the train station to catch our high-speed train to Rome!
Itinerary (click the itinerary links below to view posts):
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