Florence was the main city in Italy that I wanted to visit. I knew I would love it there and I wasn’t wrong. Here’s what we got up to:
The train from La Spezia to Florence was about 3 hours. We arrived in Florence late afternoon and it was 36deg. It was so hot and we had a short walk to our Airbnb. With the heat and me still feeling sick, our arrival to Florence wasn’t ideal.
Our Airbnb was well located though (more on this later), had plenty of cats and was so spacious. The Airbnb host took his time showing us the place and all I wanted to do was to lie down on the couch to rest.
After a much needed rest especially for me, we headed out to Mercato Centrale. It was a 2min walk from our place which was amazing. Mercato Centrale is this big market and food hall.
There are heaps of food stalls offering a range of cuisines. We decided to share this massive roast chicken dish. Sadly, I couldn’t eat much because I still wasn’t feeling great. We took half home with us and stopped by the supermarket before going back home.
It was this night that I finally broke down and cried. My stomach was so unsettled since our last night in Milan. It came in waves but I just felt generally unwell and I wasn’t ok after our first meal in Florence. I thought I’d only drink bottled water from this point onwards just to be sure so I grabbed a few bottles from the supermarket. What tipped me over the edge was I mistakenly bought sparkling effervescent water. One sip of that carbonated water and I lost it. I just wanted plain flat bottled water! It’s been 2 days of feeling unwell and I felt sorry for myself, I wanted to be able to eat properly again and I just felt so sad. I went to bed and hoped the next day would be better.
Day 1
This was our first full day in Florence, We didn’t have any plans until the afternoon so we had a slow start and walked to Mercato Centrale for lunch. We had pasta from one of the stalls in Mercato Centrale and it was amazing. It was starting to look up for me as I could eat more.
We had the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore booked in the afternoon so we lined up to go inside and to go up Brunelleschi’s dome.
Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore is beautiful. I think it’s my favourite cathedral we’ve seen during our trip. The colours, the details and intricacies of the building are amazing. I loved it.
Getting up to the dome was a slower process as the steps up are narrow but even the ceiling of the dome is beautiful. The art on the ceiling was quite dark and morbid though.
We had some pretty good views of Florence on the way up.
The photo on the right shows how narrow the way up to the dome was and it was also steep! Was I going up or down in that photo? Hard to tell! It was tiring but the views of Florence was awesome.
I loved seeing the pattern of buildings and streets of Florence and in the distance, you see more green and mountains of Tuscany.
How beautiful is this building?! I loved the architecture in Florence. After this, we felt snacky and went to search for gelato.
On the way to the gelato place, we stumbled upon Giardino Di Palazzo Medici Riccardi.
We chose La Gelateria based on reviews and its location. It was close to the Cathedral, Mercato Centrale and our Airbnb. This became our go-to gelato place while we were in Florence. We came back every day we were there and didn’t bother going elsewhere because it’s amazing. Their gelato was amazing. Highly recommend!
We rested back at home, had our leftover chicken for dinner and headed out to explore Florence at night time. I was finally starting to feel better by this time. The Cathedral at night time was also amazing and we stumbled upon a square with a carousel. We then came back to Mercato Centrale for some dessert.
Day 2
We had an exciting activity planned for this day. I booked us a pasta making class because we had to while we were in Italy. We booked through Get Your Guide. They have a few options there and some even take you to a winery outside central Florence. We opted for somewhere local and within walking distance to us.
We did the Chefactory pasta making class.
It was a big group but we were split up into 4 tables with a chef guiding us per table. We made 3 different pasta: fettuccine, ravioli and gnocchi. We also made panna cotta for dessert. We really enjoyed it. Max loves cooking and he was great at making the ravioli! We made the different sauces too. The cooking of the pasta was left with the staff as we sat back down in the dining area, had wine and waited for all our dishes to cook.
Then we tried all of our creations for lunch. They were all delicious! I think doing an activity like this is so worth it. You get to take home the recipes too and it’s a great way to spend a few hours, learning how to make pasta and getting to each all of it too.
After our past making class, we went back home to relax and Max and I had different plans for the rest of the afternoon.
Max and I have mostly done things together during this trip but this afternoon we wanted to go to different places that interested us more. He checked out the Leonardo Da Vinci museum and I went to Gucci Garden which is a museum for the Italian luxury brand Gucci. I knew I’d enjoy Gucci Garden more and Max loved the Da Vinci museum as it was interactive and more about his machinery and inventions.
I absolutely loved Gucci Garden. If you love fashion, you would enjoy it. They had collections of different couture pieces celebrities have worn.
I loved this room full of Gucci’s iconic handbags.
Being a handbag lover myself, this room was heavenly.
More iconic pieces from the brand.
It’s not a big museum but it was lovely. I had a great time.
Gucci Garden also has a boutique on the ground level which has unique pieces that’s only available in this store. I ended up getting a piece of stationery from the store as a souvenir.
After Gucci Garden, I checked out more shops. I also went into a few vintage stores and designer shops. I also made my first designer purchase in Italy. I got a Saint Laurent cardholder. I’ve tried to get one in France but they didn’t have what I wanted. The Florence shop had more options. Although they were also out of the green croc version that I initially wanted, I just got a different one. I also went to Rinascente, the Italian department store for some beauty bits.
It was a lovely afternoon of shopping. Then Max and I met up before heading home.
For dinner, we went back to Mercato Centrale because it’s so close and convenient to us. I was craving rice so we had Asian food for dinner. Then La Gelateria for gelato. The mandarin sorbet flavour from La Gelateria was so amazing. The mandarins are grown on their property.
Day 3
This was a free day for us and we didn’t really have a specific thing in mind. We ended up checking a few leather shops since Florence is know for leather craftmanship.
We ended up walking towards the Uffizi Gallery but we didn’t go in as we wanted to enjoy the sunshine. There’s only so much museums and galleries you can go to.
We ended up at Ponte Vecchio and had a view of the Arno river.
We walked further until we found something I saw on Tiktok: Officina Profumo – Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella.
The Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella in Florence is deemed as the “oldest pharmacy in the world”. It is not your typical pharmacy and is more of a perfumery and herbalist shop. It is so beautiful inside and it also smells amazing.
This store is a piece of art. I’m quite sensitive to scents so I didn’t end up buying anything but this store is worth a visit. It’s basically a perfumery and museum all in one.
Afterwards, we grabbed pizza at Mercato Centrale again before heading home for a little rest. I then went back out to check out more shops. I did some damage in Chanel beauty and got some leather goods from the market.
We then decided to check out Giotto’s Bell Tower. Entry to this is included with our ticket to the Cathedral dome. The Bell Tower is right next to the cathedral and is a separate building.
The climb to the top of the bell tower is exhausting, especially after a day of walking around already. However, the views were worth it.
Florence is such an amazing and beautiful city. I love this photo of the Cathedral and dome.
After the huge climb up to the bell tower, we went back to La Gelateria. We loved that place. If you’re in Florence, please go there for gelato. The other places didn’t look as good. Afterwards, we went back home and rested before dinner.
For our last dinner in Florence, we actually ventured out of Mercato Centrale and picked Osteria Dell’Osso restaurant. We had to try some Florentine steak while we were in Florence. Our steak was good and we also had to get dessert. Max is loved tiramisu but I’m more into panna cotta. This was pretty good.
That was it for Florence! I was so happy that I felt better in Florence and I got to enjoy the city more. I absolutely loved it here. The city was so walkable. It was easy to navigate the streets and after a day, I knew how to get back home without checking the maps. It was so easy to go to places because we didn’t need to take a bus, tram or metro. We walked everywhere in Florence and didn’t need to take any public transport. I really enjoyed our time in Florence. I would gladly spend a few more days here.
Florence Airbnb:
Our Florence accommodation was the biggest one we had for our entire trip. It wasn’t the most modern but it was so spacious! It had a mezzanine level where our bed was.
I didn’t take many photos but it had two aircon units and we had so much space. It had a full kitchen too although we didn’t cook and it had a washing machine so we could do our laundry. This place was within a huge building of apartments but it felt like a house. The only downside was no lift so we had stairs to climb but we managed. It was conveniently located. Our street connected straight to where Mercato Centrale was so it was awesome to be that close.
Train
Our last stop in Italy was Rome so we took the train from Firenze Santa Maria Novella station. We were early so we had our first Mcdonald’s meal in this trip. They had pistachio Mcflurry which was pretty good. The train from Florence to Rome was just under 2hours.
I already mentioned this in my Cinque Terre post but trains in Italy are less organised than in France. Your seat number doesn’t seem to matter as there will be someone in your seat. In this train there was someone else in our seats but their tickets also had the same seat and carriage number than us. It was bizarre. Thankfully the train wasn’t full and we were able to be seated together so that was good but it added an extra layer of anxiety for me.
My next post will be Rome. It might be split into two depending on how long it is as we also went to Vatican City.
Europe Trip blog post links:
Florence Tiktoks:
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