L’Avventura Italiana | Florence, Italy

Day 1:  Florence

We arrived early afternoon at out hotel, Hotel Balestri. It was centrally located and was seriously a stunning hotel. Marble floors, modern finished, and the nicest staff. After dropping off our luggage, we walked the streets of the city center. In order to keep moving and to beat jet lag, we wanted to make it a full day and not go to bed until 10pm(ish).

So, we toured Santa Maria del Fiore and climbed all 450+ stairs to the top of the Duomo to see a full view of Florence. The legs were burning, our minds were foggy, we were exhausted but we made it to the top & it was totally worth it! After climbing and touring, we made our first gelato stop at Caffe Fiorenza Gelateria.

We showered and got ready, and had our first dinner at La Fettunta. There was a little bit of a wait for a table, so we walked next door and grabbed a glass of wine. Once we were seated, we started with a classic meats and cheeses antipasta. We compared every meat and cheese plate to this one for the rest of the week, it was so good and was such a good deal for the amount we received. Seriously though, the food was incredible here! Dinner lasted until around 10:30pm, which was a victory in our books, so we went to sleep at a normal local time. We walked 5.5 miles on day one!

Day 2:  Florence

 We started our day with the breakfast buffet at our hotel, and then headed to the Galleria Dell’Accademia to see the statue of David. I still can’t get over how huge the statue was in person, photos just wouldn’t do it justice.

From there, we headed up to see the view at Forte di Belvedere. It was a long, uphill walk but it was worth it! We looked at the little shops, checked out the views, and took a few shade breaks because it was so hot. We breaked for pizza at Trattoria Pizzeria then hiked to the Palazzo de Michelangelo.

Day two consisted of a whole lot of walking and sightseeing, I really can’t recount everything we saw! We made our way back to Hotel Balestri, rested a little, then got ready for dinner. We had dinner at Trattoria da Benvenuto. After dinner we headed to the hotel and grabbed one last glass of wine, recounted the day, then it was lights out. Our final mile count for the day was round 8.7 miles!

The next morning we were heading to Chianti, Tuscany from Florence. Tuscany is easily a top contender for the most beautiful place I have ever been, I can’t wait to reflect back on it!

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