So… I completely forgot to add the rest of our Italy trip until one of my friends asked for our itinerary and tips to help plan her honeymoon … Better late than never, right?
Ah, Florence. Where do I even begin?! A couple friends studied abroad here in college and another friend’s husband is from Florence, so we had a lot of recommendations coming into this portion of our trip. I heard great things about Florence – the art, architecture, food and wine – and those things lived up to their reputation. We loved Florence.
Highlights from our time in Florence:
- Cooking class in Tuscany– a city tour highlighting how to buy produce and other food in Florence followed up with a 6 hour cooking class in farmhouse located in the hills of Tuscany. We made 6 courses and were served wine the entire time. It was a dream come true for me.
- The food (!!) – hands down, best of the trip. Florentine steak (which is HUGE), homemade lasagna, truffle and mozzarella sandwiches, pear ravioli … I could go on for days and days about all the amazing things we ate. It’s a good thing we weren’t staying too long or Dillon would have had to roll me out of Italy.
- Sunsets – one evening we grabbed a bottle of wine and hiked to the top of the Pizzalo de Michelangelo to watch the sunset. It was breathtakingly beautiful. Another evening, our server recommended and drew a map on a napkin for us which led us (through the dark) up into a residential neighborhood that had the MOST amazing views of Florence at night. I know, super sketchy to take a strangers advice and walk through a random neighborhood in the dark, but YOLO (sorry Mom).
- The architecture – every building in Florence was stunning. The Duomo was unreal.
On our way from Cinque Terre to Florence we stopped in Pisa to check out the Leaning Tower. It was really easy to get here and they even had a luggage storage area at the Pisa train station … I guess we weren’t the first tourists to think this stop was worthwhile 😉 We did a tour of the leaning tower which was interesting. They let you walk to the top of the tower (all marble)– take some photos and then leave. And of course we took the obligatory “holding up the Leaning Tower” photo.
