Moving away from the coastline, our next location is the Renaissance city of Florence – Firenze to the Italians. We have five days to enjoy ourselves and explore the city.

We rented an apartment in Florence that is located just two blocks away from the Palazzo Vecchio and the Uffizi Gallery. In the other direction is the Church of Santa Croce. The apartment is really comfortable and clean, and the location is hard to beat. We’re in a somewhat residential area with many places to eat and drink nearby. Silvia, the apartment manager, pointed out the nearby Gelateria as having some of the best gelato around – we’ll be checking it out!

It was located in an ancient building that was restored. There were pictures throughout the building showing what it looked like before and during construction. They did a terrific job of saving the building.

Right across the street from the apartment is a small shop, that just happens to make some delicious food items. Since it was raining, we scooted over to pick up a few items – including lunch.

So our picnic lunch was pasta with prosciutto, peas and mushrooms with a side of artichokes. We opened our last bottle of wine that we brought from Alba and with a little music – we partied!

For the remainder of the afternoon, we organized our paperwork, reviewed our plans. It looks like we’ll be dodging raindrops, so best to know our directions.

We planned ahead of time knowing that Florence would be our art city. We bought our tickets while home to be able to avoid the lines and to make sure we would get in to the galleries. Our big three were the Uffizi Gallery, The Accademia and the Palazzo Vecchio. In addition, we had entry to the Duomo. That would be more than enough to squeeze in without being overwhelmed.

The rain let up before dinner time, but we looked like Fred and Ginger dancing around puddles on the way to the restaurant. For our first dinner, we chose Trattoria Antico Fattore. It was just five minutes away, right around the corner from the Uffizi Gallery.

Very good and very filling. My one little gripe was that it was warm in the restaurant, but no complaints about the meal at all.

The good news is that it stopped raining and we were able to walk back at a more leisurely pace. Unfortunately, Sue realized she had forgotten her sweater, so we had to make a faster paced return trip to retrieve it. Then we got to walk back leisurely again.

All in all it was a good day. The rain is annoying, but “they need it”. We’re looking forward to our visits starting tomorrow.