{"id":12497,"date":"2025-04-20T08:00:20","date_gmt":"2025-04-20T15:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/?p=12497"},"modified":"2025-04-20T08:00:20","modified_gmt":"2025-04-20T15:00:20","slug":"florence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/2025\/04\/20\/florence\/","title":{"rendered":"Florence"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Arrived after a 3 hr Frecca ride from Naples only to find a long queue for the Taxi’s that turned out to be an hour and a half wait.\u00a0 The taxi’s came in one at a time at about 5 minute intervals.\u00a0\u00a0 Turns out there was a strike, that was supposedly called off… but I don’t think the message got out.<\/p>\n

We take two taxis as they are too small for the 4 of us and our luggage.\u00a0 Then we take 15 minutes to find the apartment.\u00a0 There are 2 number 10’s on our street.\u00a0\u00a0 One is a shoe shop.\u00a0 The other is in the back of gallery, and that one is ours.\u00a0 It really fronts on a different street.\u00a0\u00a0 The info from the apt folks sucked, and it gets worse.\u00a0\u00a0 It was all electronic check in and when we get there NOT one of us has cell service at the doorway.\u00a0\u00a0 So we cannot get in.\u00a0 Luckily for us, someone else comes there and goes inside so we get thru the first door.\u00a0\u00a0 Only to realize we do not have an apartment number nor a floor number of the apartment in the email from them.\u00a0\u00a0 WTH…\u00a0 I take the miniature elevator to the first floor, all the lights are off.\u00a0 another WTH..\u00a0 and I find a placard with the company name on it.\u00a0 Now, how the heck do we get in,\u00a0 Still no cell service here, and it requires us to go to a web page to open the door.\u00a0\u00a0 But lower down in the email it mentions WiFi and a code.\u00a0\u00a0 Its a long password so it takes a bit to type it in and then I can get the web page up and open the door.\u00a0 WTF..\u00a0\u00a0 We finally got in.\u00a0 But it was a struggle each day all week long.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Saturday morning we visited the Academia Gallery to see David.\u00a0 That place was a nice visit.\u00a0 Afterward we walked over to a meeting place for a walking tour which turned out to be a superb tour with a great guide named Armando.\u00a0 He grew up \"\"<\/a>just outside of Florence and made the whole area come alive.\u00a0\u00a0 Best 2.5 hours spent so far.\u00a0\u00a0 At the end of that our dogs were barking pretty loudly.\u00a0\u00a0 We headed over to a great \"\"<\/a>sandwich shop,\u00a0 $5 for a large sandwich made right as you order it.\u00a0 ($5 Euros, not dollars)\u00a0 And brought them back to the apartment and ate lunch there.\u00a0 The rooster on the wine bottle signified it was from Tuscany.\u00a0 That is our guide Armondo holding it in front of our new favorite sandwich shop.\u00a0 (La Nicchietta in Calimaruzza)<\/p>\n

The next morning (Sunday) we had Uffizi Gallery Tickets and that place is \"\"<\/a>huge.\u00a0\u00a0 We had lots of barking dogs after that mornings sights.<\/p>\n

He also told us the story of the Wine Window.\u00a0 Which was pretty cool.\u00a0 And the tradition was restarted during Covid a few years back.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Kathy made us Chicken & rice for dinner at home that evening.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Monday turned out to be a bit gray and wet and luckily for all \"\"<\/a>of us Tami had booked us for a Cooking class to learn how to make Pizza and Gelatto.\u00a0 The pizza we each made was amazing!\u00a0 And we learned the secrets of making gelatto and how to find places that make real gelatto, not the Tourist kind that is really ice cream<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Tuesday,\u00a0 Church over to Sbrio gelatto joint.\u00a0 Michaelo Angelo \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>Park, then took city bus on a tour of the city and got off at Porta Romana to head back to the apartment.\u00a0\u00a0 Dinner was spectacular at a very small place a short walk from the apartment called Gustapanino.\u00a0 Pesto Pasta ears and 3 of the best tasting meatballs I have ever tasted.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Wednesday.\u00a0\u00a0 Huge line for the Duomo entrance, bailed when we walked soo far and couldn’t find the end,\u00a0 Walked over to the Chocolate Market in front of St Croce church but it was not happening. Maybe its only on weekends, not sure.<\/p>\n

Later we found a Panini {sandwich} place right around the corner for dinner then almost next door was a great Gelatto shop with non tourist gelatto.\u00a0\u00a0 (gelatto covered by lids is the secret,\u00a0\u00a0 the Gelatto piled up in the storefront is Tourist Gelatto.<\/p>\n

The walking on Wednesday really did a number on my back so I laid low on Thursday.\u00a0 Kathy took Tami and Scott back to the dinner place we had gone to on Tuesday night and I was happy to receive a takeout order they picked up from there when they came back.\u00a0\u00a0 This time I tried the steak and it was right up there with the meatballs in great tasting food.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Kind\u00a0 of wish we had found that place earlier in our stay.<\/p>\n

Friday, was our FreccaArgento to La Spezia (city 5 minutes south of the southernmost Cinque Terre town)\u00a0 Those Frecca’s are older and a lot slower than the 1000’s and 500’s.\u00a0 But it was a quick comfortable ride there.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arrived after a 3 hr Frecca ride from Naples only to find a long queue for the Taxi’s that turned out to be an hour and a half wait.\u00a0 The taxi’s came in one at a time at about 5 minute intervals.\u00a0\u00a0 Turns out there was a strike, that was supposedly called off… but I … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Florence”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-traveling-the-hiways-and-byways"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12497"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13004,"href":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12497\/revisions\/13004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}