Italy Vacation - Day 9: Florence - 9.17.13 (13)

Italy Vacation – Day 9: Florence – 9.17.13

October 6, 2013 | Travel Photography

We originally wanted to see The Uffizi Gallery and The Accademia these days, but since we didn’t book them until we got to Florence, we had to wait until Thursday. So we made the best of the day and explored more of Florence.

We tried to wait on line for the Uffizi before it opened, but since it was a Tuesday and museums are closed on Monday, the wait was already a 3 hour wait. We said screw that and walked across the river to Palazzo Pitti and the Boboli Gardens. I thought we could do both for a decent price but the Palace was just the same as the gardens so we just opted for the gardens. The gardens were massive and nice to walk around. At first there wasn’t that many people there so it was nice. The grounds reminded me of Powerscourt Gardens in Ireland and the gardens of Palace of Versailles. Of course, we were goofing around with jump shots and other fun things. We met a nice couple from Wisconsin who we later ran into at Cinque Terre. I noticed that a few times, running into people we saw or talked with at other tours, or sights. You’d think you’d never see people again but it happened quite a lot in Italy.

We got some awesome pizza near the gardens afterwards, and then walked from Boboli Gardens up to the market on San Lorenzo. Kristen was on the hunt for bags still so we had to endure everybody trying to sell us stuff. Kristen and I walked up and over a bit and came across a building covered in US dollars on it. You can tell some of the money on the bottom was ripped off. People would come by asking what was the deal with the building and I responded “I don’t know but I really want to get a ladder right now.” I’m sure it’s some sort of art installation or something along those lines.

After going back to the hotel room and resting for a little bit, we ended up walking back up to the area we were at to the train station. We got a bus ticket and got on one of the buses that drives all the way to Piazzale Michelangelo, which overlooks Florence. It’s something that is a must if you visit Florence. It was jammed packed with people because it was sunset time. It’s really worth the bus ride and putting up with the people though. Just as I thought it would, the sunset was great! As we were trying to get back down on the bus, the bus had mechanical problems so we had to hop on another one so it took longer to get back down to central Florence.

We decided to hit up Il Latini (Via dei Palchetti, 6R, 50123 Florence, Italy), a popular restaurant in Florence. We got right in to eat, and the place was huge. There’s plenty of room inside and outside there’s lots of spots to eat too. The way the restaurant works is you can buy from the menu normally, or pay 45 euros each and get a family-style portion of food to split. They bring out all these different courses and only tell you what they are before they bring them out. We decided to go with that option because we never go all out when it comes to pricey dinners.

It was the meal that made me try many new things like chicken liver piat on bread, rabbit-sauced gnocchi, and then veal and lamb. I hated veal and lamb by the way and actually liked the rabbit better. There’s other meats they bring out like chicken, beef and pork so I ate most of them. They brought out some nice dessert and we actually switched plates with the people we were eating with because they wanted to try it too. They were another nice newlywed couple from California. It was certainly an experience eating at Il Latini but highly recommend it if you can pay for it. We got home pretty late since this meal was at least 2 hours long but it was worth it.

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