A Chance Encounter with a not so Delightful Museum Strike

Jul 17, 2018

3 min read

Our first stop in Florence was to the famous Duomo. This church is the center of one of the main piazzas in the city. It had been nearly 18 hours since I’d had gelato so I quickly stopped to get my first cup of the day.

From the Duomo, we walked towards the Uffizi Gallery. While we didn’t go inside (so much art, so little time) walking through the courtyard, you are able to see the famous citizens of Florence known for their art and intelligence. With citizens including Galileo, Vespucci, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, and Donatello, it is easy to see that Florence has had a huge impact on the world.

Florence is also simply beautiful. We walked toward the river and walked the most famous bridge, Ponte Vecchio. This bridge is special in that it has buildings and shops on either side of the bridge. I also loved going on the Santa Trinata bridge to truly see just how cute it is!

Italy is known for its piazzas, and Florence was no exception. We wandered through several as we tried to make the near impossible decision between the hundreds of restaurants before finally stopping at one in Piazza Della Signoria.

Our agenda for the rest of the night included gelato (of course) and watching the sunset from Piazzale Michelangelo.

We stopped at Gelateria Dei Neri for gelato on our way to the piazzale, and I’m confident this was our best choice of the trip. This gelato was the best thing I’ve ever tasted. I started out with a cone of Mango Cheesecake gelato, and it was so good I went back for a cup of mixed berries. (This is a MUST if ever in Florence)

After being sufficiently stuffed of gelato, we made the walk towards Piazzale Michelangelo. This walk was steep, but the views of Florence and the sunset certainly made it worth the walk. We saw a beautiful newlywed couple who were using the beautiful view as a backdrop for pictures. We stayed for the remainder of the sunset, and then it was time to head in for the night.

The next morning, we set off to the train station to make a quick pit stop in Pisa.

We literally took the train there, gave ourselves 30 minutes to walk there, 30 minutes to walk back, and 30 minutes to take ALL the pictures we could’ve dreamed of. That was all we needed. Pisa was filled to the brim of tourists and there’s not much else to do besides seeing these famous landmarks.

We popped back over to Florence in time for lunch. We had a delicious lunch at Gusta Pizzaria (I ate a calzone that had to be the size of my head) and got gelato. Florence definitely knows how to eat.

Our plan was to spend the afternoon seeing Michelangelo’s David, but that was foiled when we arrived to see the museum staff had gone on strike. This was quite the disappointment, but saying I need to go back to Florence because we didn’t see the statue of David sounds much better than saying I have to go back to eat more of their incredible gelato, right?

Just looking for my silver lining here, ya know?

So instead we set off to the Florence Markets. We wandered through here for a couple hours, bargaining for the fun of it, even though we’d already gotten bags in Rome.

There were booths upon booths of leather purses, journals, and wallets. After several reminders that we had no room for all the bags we wanted to buy, it was time to eat dinner.

Katie and I ended up choosing Gusto Leo where we shared ravioli and tortellini. This was probably our favorite meal of our time in Italy. Topped off with Eduardo gelato (look how beautiful!), our last night in Italy did not disappoint.