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Published: September 6th 2010
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The flight in was gorgeous. We saw the Swiss Alps, and the rolling hills of Tuscany from the air.
Originally we had planned to fly into Rome, and I had not been looking forward to navigating that airport. I am so glad we decided to fly into Florence because after about 22 hours straight of travel, landing in Florence’s Peretola Airport was a dream. I was anticipating a long waits for the tram to the terminal and for baggage, based on a few Tripadvisor reports I’d read about Florence’s airport. However we were off the plane, into the terminal and had our bag in less than ten minutes! I was worried because we had lost our luggage tags, but we walked out of the airport, across the street and onto the Volain-bus - with no problem and no waiting. The bus was $6euro and it took us right to the Florence train station. We enjoyed watching the crazy Florence drivers, especially the ones on motorcycles, zig-zag in and out of lanes all the way to central Florence.
There was also something poetic about starting in Florence. That is where I had finished the Italian portion of my last trip
eight years ago, and I had truly loved Florence then. As I would love it again now.
The train station, where the bus dropped us off, was full, and felt rough looking - although over the next six days, we would come to be quite comfortable there, on initial sight I was a little stressed out. We walked over to a patch of grass and pulled out a map, which got us laughed at by a couple of locals who sighed “touristas!”. We followed our googlemaps print off and walked to our hotel, Il Bargellino, in less than 15 minutes.
We were checked in by noon. Sam loved the room which was a great relief to me since I had picked and booked all our accommodation. I had consulted of course, but still felt it was my responsibility. Sam immediately went to sleep. I spent the afternoon unpacking, relaxing, reading and writing on the shared terrace of our hotel, and watching a group of Americans play with the hotel’s parrot, who eventually gave in and chirped “ciao!” Adorable!
When Sam woke up we wandered over to look at the Duomo, had our first delicious Gelato at Grom,
then crossed the Ponte Vecchio and wandered along the Arno, looking at the river and the dams. The Arno was absolutely amazing, especially as the day began to wind down and the late afternoon light cast shadows of the building on the river.
On our way back, we walked some side streets and picked up a panini that would become legendary on our trip - meat, cheese, vegetables and drizzled in olive oil. No panini for the next 31 days would match the perfection of this first one. We also got some fruit, a bottle of red wine and picked up a mediocre pizza from down the street. We ate it all on our hotel terrace, loving the fact that we were in Italy, free from all obligations, and with a month of fun, freedom and exploration ahead of us.
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