Five Florence Favorites

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How do you recap eight days in the beautiful city of Florence? First, I had to accept that it would be impossible to capture the entire experience in one blog post, so I’ve narrowed it all down to my top five favorite experiences. It was a difficult exercise as there is so much else that I could share!

I hope you enjoy the recap as much as I enjoyed putting it together…

Boboli Gardens
The Boboli Gardens are located behind the Pitti Palace and is an impressive expanse made up of gardens and statues. Several hours in the gardens isn’t enough time to see everything, especially if you get lost in the maze-like corridors in the upper botanical gardens (not that we know anything about that). It seems the gardens go on forever with something new at every turn…

Buontalenti Grotto inside the Boboli Gardens

Pitti Palace

View outside the Porcelain Musuem

Cypress Alley

Island Fountain

Michelangelo Piazza
To experience amazing views of the city we had to climb a lot of stairs, but it was well worth the effort…

View of the Ponte Vecchio from the Michelangelo Piazza

View of the Duomo di Firenze

Ponte Vecchio
Just a ten minute walk from where we stayed we made several trips to this famous bridge and took about 10,000 pictures of it…

Gold dealers & shops on the bridge

Love Locks on the Ponte Vecchio

View from the Campanile de Giotto
Sitting to the right of the Duomo di Firenze it’s 400-something steps to the top of the campanile. I made it to the 3rd set of windows, but Steve was a trooper and made it to the tip top to snap some photos…

A long way to the top

Santa Croce

The red roofs of Firenze

 Bike Ride in Tuscany
Described as “a relaxing bike ride through the Tuscan hills” for an inexperienced rider, like your’s truly, it was a bit of a challenge. At some points during the 13 mile ride I thought I might die, but I persevered and was rewarded handsomely with amazing views of the Tuscan hills and memories that we won’t soon forget. We used Bike Tour Tuscany and can’t say enough nice things — it was an organized, safe, and inspiring day!

Before the ride we explored a 12th century castle

A little wine tasting before the ride

And we’re off!