Italy: Florence

We took a trip to gorgeous Italy with Cameron's family from Dec. 26-31.  It was incredible.  We spent the first two days in Florence, then did a day in Cinque Terre, and then finished with two days in Venice.  The post is dedicated to Florence, which was most of our favorite.  I'd been there before and for whatever reason didn't love it last time; I absolutely fell in love with it this time.  We rented a great apartment for us all to stay in together and really lucked out--it was right next to the duomo, was really clean and nice, etc.  The only hiccup to our stay in Florence was that Alitalia lost Kathy's luggage.  The poor thing spent so much time trying to figure out where her bag was, and they were clearly giving her the runaround, making up stories and everything.  Luckily her bag finally came the second night we were there, which was a good thing since we were leaving for Cinque Terre the next morning.  

Anyway, what we did: We spent most of our time wandering the streets of beautiful Florence.  Every little detail is just stunning.  It was relatively quiet while we were there, and everything just felt so authentic.  Not touristy at all, which was nice.  We soaked in the "warm" weather and ate gelato twice a day.  We ate great food--lots of pizza and pasta, of course.  Our first day we wandered around the duomo and surrounding streets.  We went to see the David.  Everyone but Andy and I enjoyed a delicious dinner.  (I stayed back and put the tired little guy to bed.)  That night, Brendan, Cam, and I wandered around and fell in love with Florence at night.

Day 2, we headed to the Pitti Palace/Boboli Gardens.  Palaces and their gardens have turned into our favorite thing!  We can't get enough.  So beautiful.  The views of Tuscany were breathtaking.  We headed to the Uffizi Gallery that afternoon.  We (Cam and I) tend to enjoy 18th/19th century art more, but it was still incredible to see masterpieces by Botticelli, Michelangelo, etc.  That night we headed to Zaza Trattatoria for a delicious dinner.

Now for some pictures:

We know the Lost & Found Desk in the Florence airport a little too well.

Stunning Duomo

Brendan snuck a shot of the David, which is so impressive in person.  It's huge!

I had to include this picture, because poor Kathy got seriously yelled at for taking it!   We felt bad for Kathy, but it was pretty funny how seriously the security guard took her job.

From our evening stroll with Brendan

Pitti Palace

Boboli Gardens 

The view from the Boboli Gardens.  Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?

Andy was napping in the stroller and missed out on this one.

The Old Bridge

Cute Greg and Kathy

Dinner at Zaza: the awkward sister-in-law/brother-in-law picture