Florence

Thursday, September 12, 2013
We packed our bags in anticipation for our last stop of our trip: Firenze. On the road one last time, we made a quick stop back to the Barbi winery for some "souvenirs." The trip to Florence went by pretty quickly as we ditched our cars at the airport Hertz and caught a cab to our hotel. By hotel, I mean palace. Oh. My. God. This place is awesome. Basically three apartments, these digs could easily house the Medici. Or Medicirini as we have dubbed our Firenze palazzo. In search of food upon arrival, dad and John found a great panini shop about a block away. They brought back 2 or 3 sandwiches for us to share and we, once again, were practically comatose after the meal. Later we realized that this sandwich shop is pretty famous, judging by the lines snaking down the street. Again, we split up and the cousins headed out to shop. We quickly found the Ponte Vecchio and chose about 138,794,754 pieces of jewelry to purchase. Knowing Tom Scally would never steer us wrong, we kept our focus and made it to the other side of the bridge in search of the perfect leather coat. Well Mr. Scally certainly gave us good advice on where to find great leather because after the first stop, all three of us made it out of the store, new

coat in hand.
The three happy shoppers made it home just in time to sit at our new round table for a bit, rest our feet, and help decide what to do with our night. We spent quite a while trying to figure out what to do for dinner. We have a large crew still (8) and reservations are proving difficult. After a while of combing through reviews online and finding a place who could accommodate our large group, we found one that would do. However, once the reservation time crept closer, no one was getting hungry. Scally's hotel was several blocks from ours, and ever the adventurer, he soon found out what was going on that night:
VOGUE FASHION'S NIGHT OUT!
Screw the reservation. This was by far the coolest thing we have ever stumbled upon. Beside the fact that everyone was still full from lunch, this was way too much fun to pass up. The streets of Florence were packed with fashion lovers, free booze, and lots of good lookin Italians.

Friday, September 13, 2013
Jam. Packed.

Our day began at 10am with a tour of the Boboli Gardens at the Pitti Palace. The sweeping views of Florence made it well worth the early wake up.

12:30 Ufizzi Gallery
3:30 Viewing of Michelangelo's David Statue

Followed by stroll through market filled with cheap leather, scarves, more leather, more scarves, and some t-shirts.

Glass of complimentary vino bianco at the palazzo.

Dinner at Ristorante del Fagioli. Drooling still. T-bone. Calamari. Holy Crap. Antonio is a menu poet. He translated the menu for us and made every dish sound like porn. Can't even describe. See pics for proof.

Home. packing. sad face. :(

Saturday, September 14, 2013
Back home already. It's been a long day of travel but I'm trying to keep myself awake to keep the jet lag at bay. Good news is that the internet is MUCH faster here and pics are way easier to upload. Here are some more pics to go along with the last post, and I'll add some more soon from the rest of the trip as well.

OK I know everyone has been patiently waiting for some photos of our amazing trip. Between settling back into work, battling the mild depression from leaving Italy, and sorting through thousands of photos, I'm finally proud to announce... the photos are here!
Savor the flavor of Roma, the journey to Tuscany, Cinque Terre, and Florence. So go pour yourself a glass of vino, and enjoy the photographic recap of two weeks in Italy!

So that's the end of the journey - we had the time of our lives and hope that you'll enjoy returning to these stories and photos many times to bring back the joy and happiness of being together with our family and friends.
Love you all! XO
Ann