Sorrento - Naples - Rome - Florence - Monday September 22

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Monday September 22, 2014

Sorrento – Naples – Rome – Florence

We left Sorrento early this morning. Our driver was an hour early and we were behind. We fought Monday morning traffic out of Sorrento and ended up missing our train to Florence. Never fear, our travel company rebooked us on the next high speed train and we left exactly one hour later 11:00 am.

Wonderful train ride, high speed and business class. We all got short nap including Dan and we played several hands of 500, with Jane and Sherry winning again! We had short stop in Rome and the train left and we arrived in Florence at 2:00 pm.

We checked into our hotel – Hotel Santa Maria Novella – in the Santa Maria Piazza. A beautiful open area with the Santa Marie Novella church at one end and the square opening to the city. We checked in and started exploring. Florence is very easy to get around. Nice streets, busy but not crazy like Rome. My goodness has the city of Florence perfected the shopping. I told Jane and Sherry, this is like the Mall of America on steroids. Nice stores tucked into these old buildings. Then you walk to the end of the block and end up in another piazza. Magnificent buildings with unbelievable 15^th century architecture. We have tried to attach several pictures but is hard to describe the color and size. Hundreds of street side restaurants throughout the city and tucked in little alley ways.

We did a walk through the city and located our restaurant for supper; Dan made a reservation for us and kept us from getting lost and finding our way to all the sights. The Arno River separates Florence north and south. There is the main bridge Point Vecchio that separates city and was not destroyed during World II. The bridge is arched and contains many jewelry shops with gold and silver items.

We headed back to the north side and bought tickets to climb the Duomo. The Duomo is Florence’s Gothic cathedral. Very colorful and very large. You pay 10 Euro each and you are given the opportunity to climb the 469 steps to the top of the cupola. From there you can see all of Florence and the surrounding countryside! We took many pictures. We also had a chance to walk down those same steps!

A few more stops and an hour of shopping for Jane and Sherry, we headed to our dinner reservation at Muno on Via Mafffia Street – yes Maffia street, were we ordered wonderful tasting pizzas and finished the evening with a gelato!



Doug & Sherry and Dan & Jane

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