Day Twenty-Six - Florence, Italy

Day Twenty-Six – Florence, Italy

Before I start on today’s adventures, let me first mention a few things I left out in the last couple of blogs.

First, I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet that our hostel is right in the middle of Florence and is about 200 feet from the Duomo which is the main cathedral of Florence and is one of the major tourist attractions here. All of the wonderful Italian cafes, leather markets, shopping boulevards, and many gelato places are all within walking distance of our hostel. It’s been wonderful not to have to figure out another country’s metro system. I was proud of myself with how well I figured out London and Paris’s metro systems, but Switzerland’s train system overwhelmed me so I never even tried lol. I’m just so tired of riding on trains at this point that I’m willing to walk wherever haha. But tomorrow will be a three hour train ride from Florence to Rome!! I’m pretty sure that’s going to be better than our 12 hour flight home, though. Phew…

Anyways, another thing I neglected to mention was that a couple days ago, in all of our grandeur shopping extravaganzas, Emily and I found a DISNEY STORE! If Italy wasn’t my favorite country beforehand, I think it might be now! The only disappointing thing was that they only had like one Belle thing. Rude.

But now for today’s adventures. Phew. I’m getting tired just thinking about them! Today was a long day but a great day. We had a private tour around some hidden jewels of Tuscany today! It was called the “Off the Beaten Path” tour – so it was some really cool places that not many tourists know about. We met our tour guide, Roberto, here in Florence, then we took a bus to Siena, which is a little town in the Tuscany region. Our first stop was an Etruscan tomb that we got to go inside and see and learn a lot about ancient European history. One of the coolest things about this tour guide is that, throughout the whole day, in telling us all of the history he would explain how we got things we have today from their traditions – little idioms, phrases, ways of doing things, etc.  I really liked that because it makes history so much more relatable. I’ve always enjoyed American history because I like knowing where I come from…and ancient history was always much less interesting to me because it just felt so distant and just like a made up story almost. But hearing how many of these people’s traditions and ways of living we use now made things so much more interesting to me!

After seeing the tomb, we went to a winery that was straight out of a movie I’m pretty sure. Imagine driving through Tuscany and seeing vineyards on both sides of the road and then pulling up to a beautiful country home where an old Italian man walks out with his straw hat on. Haha I loved it. He showed us all around his winery and Roberto acted as a translator for us and having to have someone interpret the Italian made it just that much cooler. This farm/winery was beautiful and it was really cool to learn about all the things they do differently there than in America (not that I knew that much about wineries in America, but still, haha). This is an organic farm/winery and they grow, sell, raise it all. So we got to see all of that and then we got to eat lunch there! This winery/farm has a little restaurant attached to it so we got to have a five course meal where everything we ate from the bread, to the cheese, to the meat, to the dessert – was made from things grown/raised on the farm. Talk about FRESH. It was absolutely delicious. And FILLING. I still have yet to taste something on this trip that I haven’t liked yet!

After lunch, we went to an old Medieval Village that is so elevated you’re supposed to take an elevator up to it…but the elevator was BROKEN! So we walked up the steepest incline haha oh my gosh it was quite the work out. But I was so sleepy at this point that it really woke me up so I liked it! When we got to the top of the village, we could look out over all of Tuscany and it was absolutely beautiful. We toured the city with Roberto and learned a lot about ancient European history so that was pretty cool.

Then it was 4 o’clock at this point so we took the bus back into Florence and I headed straight for bed. After a three hour nap, I felt like I had enough energy to get up haha this trip is draining at times so naps are my friend.

A few of us went out and got calzones and gelatos (a mealtime staple at this point in our Italy journey) and then we all went to pack for Rome!

I’ve been to Rome before and last time I was there I threw three coins over my shoulder into the Trevvi fountain to ensure that I would make it back to Rome someday…it obviously worked so I’m thinking I’ll do it again this time!

Until next time – ciao!

MC