Oh Florence. The food, the wine, the views. Florence was by far my favorite city we visited and I love that it wasn’t very crowded. After the wine tour in the Chianti region, we spent a really fun day being tourists and snapping pictures all around this beautiful city. We could not have had better weather – blue skies and warm days. Florence was good to us!
We started the morning heading to the market they have every Saturday. The market had everything from clothing to food to tourist items. At the end I picked up probably my third scarf of the trip, a watercolor from a local artist, and the fun Christmas ornament ball I mentioned in my Christmas Tree post. I also at first tried to discreetly take a picture of an adorable Boxer, but then my husband went up and pet him so I took a picture of them both. I’ve never seen a fawn boxer quite as dark, but he was a sweetheart and definitely made me miss Kira!
We continued on and took pictures of La Cathedrale, and one in front of the Duomo di Firenze. It is amazing how much detail was on just the door of the cathedral, let alone the entire building!
Afterwards, we walked to the top of Giotto’s Bell Tower for views of the city. The popular building for views in Florence is the tallest building, the Duomo. While researching, we found that it is also more crowded, so we walked up the many steps of the bell tower for some spectacular views. I would definitely recommend this option as it wasn’t too crowded, and we got great pictures of the Duomo as well!
After, we explored a little more before our last planned stop of the day. I loved all of the statues in the square, including the replica of the David. We did not go in to see the actual David as we heard wait times were over two hours, so it just didn’t seem worth it. The sculptures outside are beautiful, but I kept finding it hard to take them seriously as pigeons seemed to be on top of every sculpture.
Right around this time, I started to panic because I had been wandering around trying to get pictures and I thought lost the group. Here is a great picture of Erik coming out of his hiding spot and laughing when I saw him. He had been spying on me the whole time. :)
We then stumbled across a smaller market and this warthog. Apparently you rub his nose for good luck. Fun!
To round out the day, we stopped to get a few pictures by the river, then walked up to the Pizzale Michelangelo for some breathtaking views of the sun setting on Florence. Seriously, this was one of the best sunsets I have ever seen.
This was the view right as you get to the top of the Pizzale Michelangelo, and the winding road we walked up to get there.
Next up, off to Roma for some ancient ruins and an unforgettable food tour!
I thought that Florence and Naples were the most photogenic cities on my trip as well.
Awesome shots from higher up! You have to love the terra cotta roofs.
Thanks for the comment, A.J.! Naples/Amalfi Coast are definitely on my list for future trips.
I loved the terra cotta roofs as well, so much more pretty than the roofing here although I was thinking they have to be pretty costly to repair?