Firenze

My next stop on our fabulous Italian vacation was to the beautiful Florence, Italy, the birthplace of the Renaissance! We took the "TrenItalia" from Rome to Florence which took about an hour and 1/2. Italian trains are fast, clean and modern.  It cost us $43 euro each (about $60 US).  The countryside was gorgeous with beautiful vistas of farmland, stucco homes, and mountains in the distance.

Florence was more suburban than Rome, much less crowded and a walking town--we never took public transportation the entire 5 days we were there.  The bridges around the city are spectacular, with rising hillsides with  columnar cedar trees and spanish tiled roof and stucco homes in the typical terra cotta, peach and cream colors.   Some of the highlights of Florence are the medieval stone bridges like the Ponte Vecchio, filled with jewelry merchants;

the best gelato bar in Florence; (we were becoming connoisseurs, justifying our daily dose with walking 6 miles a day)

 {presentation is everything, right?}

the Duomo, which is the main church in Florence, designed by Filippo Brunelleschi;

the Gallerie Accademia, where Michaelangelo's David resides, where I died and went to heaven in his presence,

the Uffizi gallery and hosts of other artist studios I'll write about soon.

We rented an apartment for 5 days and it had yellow striped walls! It was about 300 sq. feet with a loft bed and spiral staircase...totally unexpected, but near a "mercado" or outdoor market and lots of quaint cafes.

The bed had a leather headboard (of course!) as Florence is famous for their leather. Yes, we went crazy buying it and had to ship a box home!

There was a darling designer boutique nearby called Lisa Corti, from Milan, that I would have loved some bedding or a tunic top from (very pricey)!

I took 1,000 pictures and don't want to bore you, nor do I know what you might like to see, so I'll keep it short and sweet. Suffice it to say, it was  eye candy overload! So far, Florence was our favorite!

Until........ Venice!