Our last major city touring happened on Sept. 25 with a visit to Florence. We left our Airbnb early – a little after 7:30am to make the roughly 1.5 hour drive. Mark had already bought a garage parking spot for us so we were able to park very close to the Ponte Vecchio. We did have tickets for the Uffizi Gallery and Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze but unfortunately I bought them for Tuesday instead of Thursday (which we found out Thursday morning before we left), so we had to improvise our visit a bit.
We started our tour of Florence with a walk over the Ponte Vecchio. We then headed to the Piazza del Duomo – what an impressive sight!! The multi-coloured marbled walls of the cathedral were amazing. The crowds around this area were also amazing – so many people. We were going to try to see the inside of the cathedral but the lineup was crazy.
Our next stop was the Palazzo Medici Riccardi – the Medici family home in the mid 1400s. The architecture of the palace was very interesting with huge high ceilings and typical renaissance arches and columns. The building not only displayed furnishings from the Medici family but also many of the artworks commissioned by the family.
From the palace we headed to the Galleria dell’Accademia but again the lineup was crazy so we made our way over to the Uffizi and were able to get tickets for a 12pm entrance. The museum/gallery was very busy so we went to their cafeteria for lunch and then explored the artworks. We saw Michelangelo, da Vinci and Botticelli plus many more! It was a bit overwhelming and by mid afternoon, we were all ready to get a cup of coffee. We did a bit of shopping, had our coffee and returned to the car to drive back to Benabbio. Florence was great and one day just gave us a small taste of what the city had to offer. We all decided we’d love to come back another time to do a week-long stay!
Crimson Kathryn and her crew 