As our time in Germany comes winding down, Bruce and I are busy selling, cleaning, packing, and throwing away possessions that we have accumulated over the past several years. While we are both looking forward to getting back to the states for a variety of reasons, we are definitely going to miss living in such an incredible area of Europe with the ease of international travel. For our last big trip together, we decided to head to the land of pasta and leather. While I had the opportunity to travel to Italy my senior year of high school with the Tatnall Concert Choir, Bruce had yet to travel there (besides a quick bite to eat on the Italian side of a mountain during a skiing trip to Switzerland). We decided on Florence after finding an affordable flight and a great Airbnb in the city!
Dropping Callie off at the kennel (not her favorite place, really), we drove up to Frankfurt Hahn Airport and boarded the flight to Pisa, Italy. At only about an hour and a half, we land in no time! From Pisa we grab a bus to the city center of Florence, again super easy and at about 5 Euros each, we can't beat the price!
The first thing we realize hopping off the bus is that we are definitely not in Germany anymore. The sun is shining and the weather is delightful! We decide that on the way to our apartment for the weekend we will start off the trip right- with some food!
The first restaurant of the trip is called the
Fishing Lab. Located down the street from the Cathedral and Santa Maria del Fiore, it is a great place to grab some fish and other seafood! We opted for an octopus appetizer, a salmon pasta (because we can't have a first meal in Italy without some sort of pasta), and a tuna slider. We really enjoyed the tuna, as it had a little kick to it and was the perfect small portion for a lunch! After getting something into our stomachs we started the walk to our Airbnb. Turns out the owner of this Airbnb owns about 20 other apartments all in one building. There is a front desk and it has an overall "hotel" feel but for better prices! Our room was just recently renovated, and it had a beautiful view of the city.
After freshening up a bit, we headed out to do a little exploring, a little shopping, and a lot of walking! For those of you who haven't made it out to Italy, specifically Florence, the one thing you see in every little shop and stand along the streets are shops full of leather products. Bags, shoes, jackets, wallets, belts, hats, basically anything you can form out of leather gets made and sold. Now, whether it is made using real, good quality, Italian leather is the question. With a huge influx of tourists comes the inpouring of knock-offs and cheaply made imitations of the true leather products that Italy prides itself on. As Bruce was in the market for a good leather briefcase, we went to a lot of these shops and booths deciding whether or not it was worth it to go for the real deal, as opposed to something that looked perfectly fine, and was much cheaper, but not the top quality. We talked and haggled with shop owners, asked for opinions, got business cards, and pissed off a particularly angry salesman who must have been having a bad sales day. The day ended without any purchase but with a little more understanding of what we were looking for.
That evening we stopped by a bar nearby our apartment called
Off the Hook, where we grabbed a drink and rested our tired feet (boy, I had no idea what kind of pain my feet would be in by the end of this trip). Here we caught a bit of the Wales vs Belgium soccer match before heading off in search of dinner (yes we just eat drink and walk this whole post, get ready). Our first idea was to follow the advice of our Airbnb desk attendant who told us about her favorite Neapolitan (from Naples) pizza place. Florence isn't known for its pizza, but Naples sure is! We thought that we should get some pizza at least once on the trip, so we started our walk there as the sky began to get dark. Walking by the restaurant we realized that it looked a bit like a fastfood/kabob place as opposed to a nice sit-down dinner place. For plan B, I had done some research of restaurants ahead of the trip (yes, on a word document with addresses, maps, and phone numbers...why do you ask?). So, we turned towards the river where I thought it would be a gorgeous view for our meal. As you walk towards the river, near the Ponte Vecchio, as you can imagine it gets pretty touristy. The few restaurants I found here were no different in that the menu was set for tourist tastes and prices. At this point it was getting to be about 9:30pm and our feet were throbbing. We keep pushing forward in hopes of finding a place to get some authentic, good food when we come up to a restaurant with some tables out in the street and people still dining despite the late hour. They give us a table and we plop down in our seats grateful for the chance to rest. I order some grilled vegetables with some soft cheese and Bruce orders a slow cooked beef dish. When our food arrives, we dive in only to stop after a few bites. My vegetables are fine, but nothing special. The eggplant and artichoke are still very bitter, and the seasoning is mild, whereas Bruce's beef tasted like the chef's salt shaker cap flew off while he was seasoning the dish. We felt bad, and ate enough that we weren't hungry, but until we didn't want to eat it much more. Maybe our standards were too high, that every restaurant in Italy should have this amazing food, cooked to perfection, carb-filled deliciousness. I decided that it was a curse of mine to have one not-so-great meal in Italy (after the last trip with the choir...microwave lasagna...*Shivers*). In the end, we made it home exhausted, full of wine enough that we didn't really mind the less-than-wonderful meal. I was excited for the next day where I had planned a surprise for Bruce!
We woke up to another beautiful sunny day ready for my surprise! After stopping by a cafe for a quick coffee, we walked to the Basilica di San Lorenzo, where we would meet our tour guide from "
Florence for Foodies". Yes of course, my surprise was a food tour! As I am marrying the man who loves food the most out of everyone I have ever met, I figured this would be the most appropriate activity in which to partake. When our tour guide, Natalie, arrived I knew that the day would be a ton of fun! We met the others in our group, which consisted of two sisters, a family with two college-aged boys, and another couple. We started off at a cafe nearby the market where we had a cappuccino and a pastry called ' sfogliatella riccia' which is a filo-like dough filled with a sweet cream. While I am not a huge lover of sweets (besides some dark chocolate here and there) this was a delicious way to start the morning! Here Natalie gave us our Italian names, mine sounds exactly how the Germans say it, or my old latin teacher La-oooo-ra, and Bruce became 'Bruno'. Natalie would later make us a dinner reservation under his new Italian name.
After the cafe, Natalie walked us to a huge indoor market called Mercato di San Lorenzo, where we stopped at Da Nerbone to grab one of their traditional sandwiches, the bolito (boiled beef). She filled us in on the family who owned the stand, including how the father likes to be called "Richard Gere" and the son "Daniel Craig". She also told us that they had to put up several signs in Japanese to help tourists from there figure out their system aka not asking questions, just ordering-paying-and-leaving. Thankfully, the woman from the other couple in our group was a vegetarian as well! So I wasn't the only one trying some of the sauces from the restaurant on bread, which was pretty good!
We walked through the market together as she showed us some of the other booths, including a butcher who's saying was something to the effect of "eat more meat, have better sex" (it rhymed somehow). Then Natalie brought us to her friend's shop for balsamic and olive oils where we were able to taste a wide variety of types of balsamic oil and olive oils. This was a great break between large amounts of food for sure! We learned a lot about the history of Florentine food and more specifically about why the bread there is rather tasteless. Apparently a long time ago, Pisa controlled the trade of salt in Italy. Florence, not wanting to pay the taxes that Pisa placed on salt, opted simply to not use any. Thus a plain, salt-less bread. To make up for this, they have olive oil on the table at each restaurant for you to drizzle on your bread to your hearts content. The owner filled us in with lots of information about her products as well as how she got there! Turns out, she used to be a cop in LA, and then moved to Florence after falling in love with a shop owner in the market we were in just earlier in the tour. Such a romantic story!
 |
| Plumb, the owners dog |
After the tasting, it was time for our "baptism"....We got to a wine store where the owner makes his own Chianti as well as "Grappa spray bottles". For those who have never tried grappa, usually you can find it at Greek restaurants, but as with most things, there are different types of grappa for different countries. This gentleman puts his grappa into spray bottles to get the taste without drinking shots of it (apparently his liver does not allow him to drink as much as he would like). So, with these spray bottles, Bruce and I were up first for the "baptism". We were told to sit on some stools in front of our group and hold our mouths open, and our eyes closed shut (very very tight)! The tour guide and the owner then proceeded to spray us to the point of dripping with grappa. Our face, hands, neck, and hair were covered in the strong liquor apparently giving us bright and tight skin. It wasn't the most pleasant experience, but I'm glad we went first! As other members of our group went up for their turn, the sprayers became more and more enthusiastic and a little less..well..nice with their spraying. Someone came in with a small water gun filled with the stuff! The poor young boys at the end got the brunt of the spraying so that one had soaking spots on his shirt mainly from the water gun. By this point we were pretty loose from wine, prosecco, and grappa that we were ready for our final stop, Gelato!
 |
|
The shop we were taken to was unlike the other shops we had seen in that it did not have mountains of beautifully decorated gelato sitting in glass display cases for tourists to see. This shop had theirs in metal buckets with tops on them to keep the gelato cold and fresh. We were able to choose a mixture of our liking. I chose dark chocolate, yogurt, mint, and coffee, and it was delicious! Bruce had his gelato cone as well, and then our tour guide handed him an ice-cream sandwich made with a sweet bun and a gelato filling. He didn't want to be rude so he finished it, but he said he did not feel well afterwards (poor guy). Gelato overload is a very real thing. After everyone was finished we said our thank-you's and goodbye's and went our separate ways!
 |
|
After the food tour, Bruce and I welcomed a good walk- which is exactly what Florence is best at providing. We walked up to the Ponte Vecchio, which turns out to be lined with solely jewelry stores, in case anyone was wondering. Not needing jewelry, we turned back into the city and continued our search for Bruce's briefcase, stopping at the apartment to freshen up. That night was the Germany vs Italy soccer game, and we were very excited to be there to watch it! When I was in Florence about 8 years ago, it was the Spain vs Italy game and I remember the streets just exploding with people! I hoped for the same energy to grip the city that night.
Fast forward to dinner that night at a restaurant called
Trattoria la Gratella where our foodie tour guide made our reservation under 'Bruno'. Arriving around 7, we were the only ones there besides one other pair sitting out in the garden with us. We started talking and eventually moved to sit next to them. It turns out they were friends, attending a summer course in Florence about international law. We became fast friends, even sharing tastes of our food when it arrived! Bruce's giant kilo steak came out on its own mini grill. It had a great crusty outside and a delicious tender inside (yes I tried a bite, no I didn't die). I ordered a vegetable risotto, which was dreamy. I tried Ruxandra's (our new friend) Carbonara which was sooo deliciously cheesy, and Kamil ordered the slow-cooked beef dish that Bruce ordered at the previous restaurant (the unfortunate one), but luckily, Kamil's turned out great! We decided that we would go watch the game together, and eventually it put us in the street outside a bar nearby our apartment watching the screens among a small crowd of people from all over the world. The energy surrounding us during the penalty shots was incredible! I loved being around everyone as we jumped up and cheered or yelled and pointed at the ref on the TV like we had any control over his call. The most surprising part of the evening was when the game ended. There was no yelling or cursing or anger. It was as if everyone just switched-off their soccer brain and went back into their normal lives like nothing happened. I was getting ready for some drunk angry Italians all evening to come barreling through the streets, but for better or for worse, that didn't happen. It was sad, but ultimately such a fun way to spend an evening with new friends! We said goodbye to Ruxandra and Kamil and headed home to get ready for the next day.
 |
|
The next day, as the first Sunday in the month, most (I say "most" for a reason) museums wave their admission fee! So obviously we took advantage of that. Starting out with some breakfast (duh) we went to a place called "
Le Vespe Cafe" Where they have a great selection of breakfasty foods and coffee. I loved going to a country that knows how much better filter coffee is than robot coffee! Nothing like it. Anyways, I ordered a "breakfast shake" full of banana, coffee, oats, soy milk, and cacao, and Bruce got an eggs Benedict to start off our day. From there we wandered through, planning on climbing the duomo first. It turned out to be fully booked for that day, so we opted to try again the next day and do other museums instead. The first one we walked by was the natural history museum. It looked quiet, which I took as a good thing, but probably should have told me the opposite. We walked in, paid the entrance fee (I didn't know museums were free that day yet...) and headed through the exhibits. Natural history museums can be interesting and beautiful, take the one in London for example. This one, was a bit underwhelming. It looked like an old house and some cabinets filled with beaded jewelry, clothing, and weapons mainly from the native people from each continent. Unless we missed a whole other part of the museum we were less than impressed. We left thinking that we gave the museum 12 Euros to improve themselves, as we came up to the next building the National Museum, which had free entry that day. It has a gorgeous courtyard inside surrounded by huge statues of various god and goddess forms. Then the interior rooms hold treasures, paintings and other artifacts. This museum had a much more pleasant atmosphere and it was a beautiful building. I enjoyed looking at the architecture just as much as the artwork the building held.
 |
|
Feeling better about museum day, we continued our walk across the river and to a little river-side cafe called "
Easy Living" where we had a drink and propped up our feet enjoying the shade and people watching for a bit. We talked about everything that will be happening in the very near future. Bruce leaves for LA on July 15th (too soon) and will come back for the first week of August to go to Rob and Manon's wedding in Brussels, then we fly out (not together, but on the same day) on August 8th to start our adventure together out on the west coast! We reflected on the trips we've made here in Europe and our fond memories.
Back to Florence, from Easy Living we walked up the river to a restaurant Bruce found during his research called "
Carduccio" located right down the street from the Opera House across the Ponte Vecchio. Known for its fresh, vegetarian food, I was obviously SUPER excited! We got there between lunch and dinner, thinking it would be a quiet time for the restaurant but we were proven wrong. The tiny space has about 7 small tables and each was taken by groups of people a mix of locals and tourists enjoying the freshly made food. The owners looked a bit stressed, as they made each table's food right there in the small kitchen area while taking other orders, making drinks, and cleaning up. It took about 45 minutes to get a table and another 15-20 to order and then get our food. It was totally worth the wait! We told the couple not to worry, that we had nothing but time and nowhere to be. Eventually it quieted down and we struck up conversation with them as they were able to relax a bit more. I ordered a green salad with apples, fresh goat cheese, walnuts, and sun dried tomatoes. The portion size was perfect and that homemade goat cheese was drool-worthy. Bruce got the raw zucchini pasta (I know. Raw. Zucchini. Vegetarian. This place doesn't have anything for Bruce), but it was great! A refreshing and healthy dish for the heat of the day. Complete with cheese and strawberries, this was my favorite thing we got! We also tried their bruschetta which was, again, super freshly made and fantastic! If you have time to wait, I would definitely check this place out before or after going into the Opera House and gardens!
 |
|
Which is exactly what we did. Again, the entrance fee was waved and we went straight in to check the place out. The center theater area was set up for a play (doing some research it turns out they were putting on "La Traviata") The Opera House has a classical and modern art museum attached which we walked through. It was an interesting set up they had where they combined modern modeling photography in with classical paintings. An odd combination, but it kept us entertained. We then walked back to the gardens behind the opera house where there is a wonderland of beautiful green grass, perfectly groomed hedges and gorgeous statues lining the pathway. We climbed up to take in the view of the city and the grounds, as well as rest our (now chronically) tired feet. As you climb higher into the garden they get a bit less strict about being able to lay down on the grass and enjoy the weather with a book, or some wine, or a loved one.
 |
|
From there we made our way back into the city, stopping by a small market to rub water on a giant hog statue's nose for good luck. Just things you do in Florence you know?
We then stopped in a super trendy, instagram-worthy bar slash cafe slash restaurant slash flower shop...called
La Menagere where we made friends with a couple next to us from Lancaster, Pennsylvania of all places. They were super sweet, she even gave me her business card as an interior designer (She loves to visit CA apparently haha) and it was a fantastic way to pass the time! One of my favorite things about this trip was how easy it was to meet and talk to people, other tourists and locals alike.
From La Menagere we were off to dinner at a restaurant called "
Konnubio". In a beautiful building, the restaurant focuses on traditional Tuscan cuisine. We arrived to the sound of an instrumental Disney film playlist, which was actually amazing to all you haters out there. It was like a guessing game, in which I excelled...because...Disney. Anyway, we order a cheese plate with some wine to start the evening off. Then we get a black squid ink ravioli and a margherita pizza to share. I'm not sure if people who are looking at travel advice actually read my blog (as opposed to just my family), but this is a GREAT restaurant with delicious food and great service!! 5 stars from us for sure! After dinner we catch the middle of the France vs Iceland game, which did not go very well for Iceland.
The next morning, our last day in Florence, we grabbed some breakfast at "
Ditta Artigianale" before facing the Duomo line stretching around the corner. We were going to try and climb the tower, but we opted to just walk into the cathedral to check it out before leaving the city. For some reason in my head, I confused the interior of the Florence Duomo to the one in Siena (I know, how could I), and so seeing the distinctive green and white stripes on the outside of this Florentine structure, I automatically assumed that we would be seeing the black and white, Betelgeuse-style stripes on the inside too. Walking in, I obviously saw that I was mistaken. Nevertheless, the cathedral is beautiful and we walked around taking in the structure and details of the cathedral before making our way to the train station.
We figured, if we were flying in and out of Pisa, we should try and stop in the city center to see the famous leaning tower, if for nothing more than crossing a major world landmark off our list. Stepping out of the station we noticed just how much hotter it was in Pisa than Florence, and carrying our luggage with us, even the small amount we packed, didn't make it much better. We walked at a pretty good pace all the way to the monument, by which time we were both hot, sweaty, tired, and completely over tourists. Walking up to the tower, it was actually quite stunning. The stark white of the buildings' stone against the bright green grass made the whole area seem unreal. And of course the whole tilting building thing. It was actually much leany-er than I expected, although I'm not sure what I expected really. We took a few pictures, trying to avoid that standard pose that everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) there was taking. Then we had a few hours to kill before we had to get to the airport. Looking for a quiet (and cool) cafe or at least just somewhere to sit and cool down we found a small restaurant with a little seating area under umbrellas that was completely empty. Perfect. We took a seat, ordered a drink and a cheese plate (because....cheese), and just relaxed in the shade until we called a taxi to the airport. Overall, it was a really lovely way to end the trip. Just relaxing with nothing to see, do, or walk to. That's what vacation is all about.
 |
|
 |
|
With a quick flight back we were welcomed in Germany by cloudy skies, 60 degree weather, and a list of things to do before we leave! I couldn't imagine a better trip to take for our last big hoorah in Germany with a better guy to take it with! These last few weeks are going to be tough, and it will be even more so once Bruce is gone! Callie and I are going to spend a lot of time together. I picture rollerblading montages in the empty living room of the apartment.
Sorry for the outrageously long post, but it was a great trip full of fun little details! Maybe my next post will be from Long Beach, CA??
until then xoxo
Italian of the post:
Como sono gli italiani cosi magro?
"How are Italians so skinny?"
