Europe Part II

Our first full day in Florence we did TONS of site seeing. It was also a Saturday so we knew lines might be long for the must see things. So.... we planned out our agenda and hit the ground running by 8am. The jet lag actually wasn't bad at all so we felt pretty normal actually. We had breakfast at a little street cafe, and grabbed some pastries that were delicious. This post will be mostly pictures with a few comments from yours truly :)

I couldn't get over how cute the streets were.... picture perfect.

Our first stop was the Duomo! We got in line to climb the dome.

Lots of beautiful views from the dome! I love how Florence is surrounded by mountains!

Walking back down from the dome, you have to exit through the cathedral part so we were really glad we didn't wait in that line first, because we still got to briefly see inside. Very pretty!

The outside of the Duomo

Outside Palazzo Vecchio

Views from the tower in Palazzo Vecchio, looking down on Piazza della Signoria. It's a really fun area where lots of peole hang out, sidewalk cafes, no cars, and several shops.

I was obsessed with all the old, pretty, huge doors!

Look closely where the red flowers are, that's someone's terrace. Pretty awesome!

One of my favorite pictures over looking the Arno River.

I look so small next to these doors!

Then we went to the Uffizi Gallery, tons of famous art and sculptures are here. Jerrod and I aren't really into art so we just browsed about an hour and left, but honestly you could spend 8 hours here!

Views out of Uffizi and onto the Arno River/Ponte Vecchio bridge.

This room was incredible, you can't even walk inside, only view form the doorway. The walls were velvet, tons of marble, and lots of expensive detail!

All the little people are on the top of the Duomo, that's where we were in the first pics we we had some great views. Then we had some extra time so we decided to climb to the top of the tower at the Duomo that were in earlier pics. We basically climbed every single tower or dome that you can in Florence. Jerrod loves to go to the top of things that are taller than him :)

Based on some great reivews on trip advisor I wanted to try this little sandwich shop called All'Antico Vinaio. It exceeded our expectaions! So many great meats and cheeses to choose from. The line was really long but it moved pretty quickly and was definitely worth the wait! Not to mention the sandwiches are huge, and are only 2 euro!

In the afternoon we headed to Galleria dell' Accedamia where the famous statue of David is. We were surprised by how big it is. Lots of Michelangelo's work was in here.

After the Accedamia we did some shopping in the San Lorenzo Market. I was on the hunt for a leather jacket. Florence is known for their leather, so the one sovernier I wanted was a leather jacket for the fall/winter. I'll tell you more about that later on.

Then we went to Trattoria Za-Za for dinner that night. A friend of ours highly recommended it and it had great reviews on trip advisor. This was probably one of our favorite meals of the entire trip!

The cute pizza chef, busy at work. It smelled heavenly, but we didn't try the pizza. We had lots of pasta, shrimp w/truffle sauce, bruschetta, walnut cream pasta, wine, and steak. It was awesome!

After dinner we decided to walk around the city. This was in one of the plazas.

This picture is for Amy... a little baby D&G store LOL. We did lots of window shopping.

Ponte Vecchio at night was so beautiful! We walked around the river every night.

Palazzo Vecchio at night.

We walked by this car and thought, how does anyone fit in there? lol I don't think Jerrod could...

The next day we had a wine tour planned from 9-3 in Tuscany. We met at the Tuscan Wine School in Florence. We had a little wine tasting lesson and learned different things about the region for about 45 minutes. Our tour was all Chianti Classico wines, which is a Tuscan specialty. We also tasted Super Tuscans. After leaving the wine school they took us to a beautiful spot overlooking the city of Florence called Piazzale Michelangelo. We got some great pictures! This first one might be my fav!

We met another young couple from Montreal on our tour, so we took pics for each other and did all the tastings with them :) They were great, I wish we had a picture with them.

You can see the old city wall in this pic.

The drive was only 30 minutes but I wish it was longer, it was so beautiful! The first winery we visited was Fattoria Montecchio. The views were amazing. This was looking off the back porch on to the vineyard. 

We did a full tour of the winery and got to see the whole wine making process. Where they keep the barrells was my favorite room!

Pictures don't do it justice.

How cute is this? I loved everything about it.... 

We tasted 4 different wines (Super Tuscan and Chianti Classico) along with eating some homemade foccacia bread and of course lots of olive oil. Then we walked around and took pictures.

The perfect day.

Then we arrived to Casa Emma.

I felt like I was in a movie!

This is Emma's house. Her and her husband are the owners of the farm/winery, and they are in their 80's. They walk that path from their villa to the tasting room every afternoon to check on things. The villa can be yours for only 4 million euro! :)

We had lunch at this winery along with our tastings. They paired each course perfectly and the bruschetta and homemade pasta were excellent too!

After the last winery we headed back to Florence. I was really sad to leave Tuscany. Jerrod and I both agreed that if we go back one day we would love to stay a few days in that area. 

When we arrived back in Florence it was around 3pm so we decided to see a few more things before heading to dinner. We went to Pitti Palace.... That place is huge!!! Here I am in front of it. You could spend a whole day here if you wanted. The palace was huge with lots of things to see, then you walk through to the gardens!

Here we are in the gardens. They were massive! Also great views of Florence from here!

They featured a bunch of old dresses that some of the royalty and wealthy women wore.

After the palace we went back to the B&B to rest a bit. Then headed out for dinner. We just walked until we found something we liked. We decided to eat on one of the main Plaza's at Piazza della Signoria. We sat outside and there was live music playing. Then about halfway through dinner it started POURING! So everyone hurried inside, and we finished dinner. The rain never let up so we ran back to our hotel. However, we were about a mile away, and it was pouring, and we didn't have an umbrella. Needless to say we were soaked by the time we got to the room but it is a fun memory with Jerrod I will never forget :)

Next post will be all about Rome!

Blessings,

Amanda