Firenze.
Let me get this out of the way ... If you're planning a trip to Florence. Add at least 2 days to whatever you were thinking. Because this city will steal your heart. And you'll leave and you'll say, ohmygosh, I wish we had just 2 more days. Believe me.
Here was the view from our airbnb...need I say more? (Well, I'm going to anyway...)
We got to experience the (insanely ornate) beauty of the Duomo, the best food (in the history of food) and all.the.wines. in the company of family. Which made the trip even more special! Jason's parents had never been to Europe and after adjusting to the idea of us living so far away, realized that it also meant they had built-in-tour-guides and a perfect excuse to take a 3-week European adventure.
They started off by spending a few days in our town, then popped over to Scotland for some bucket-list golfing.
Jason's brother Jake & wife Bizi (Uncle Jake & Aunt B) were planning their own EuroTrip and it - somehow by the magic of trip-planning-schedule-wizards - worked out for us to all meet in Florence.
This is the 3rd trip we've taken to Italy (Lake Como & Amalfi were two of our summer stops last year) and we'd been dreaming of the beautiful, rolling Tuscany hills. I asked friends for their Florence recommendations and I just kept hearing things like "we didn't realize how much we'd love Florence" and I get it now. Florence had the best food of any of our previous Italian adventures and the city just has this artsy, laid back, vibe.
And we were really mature about it.
I did a bunch of research on the best "tours" and such knowing that we'd only have 2 full days altogether and we wanted to see as much as possible. My friend recommended the Florence for Foodies tour and it was so great. We had a local guide taking us to teensy cafes, finding the hidden gems of the Florence food scene and shared lots of historical info along the way. We learned all about wine, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, tasted award-winning gelato & feasted on Florentine delicacies. I Highly recommend!! It was only partial day so we got to spend some time exploring on our own sched too.
The next day we ventured to Tuscany. Holy. Moly. We fell in love at first sight. For real.
We visited the Chianti region tasting at 2 vineyards, one with its own gorgeous Aguriturismo that will 100% be seeing us again in the future. We went to Mormoraia first - and side note, they make the most delicious rosé. They don't ship to the US but do work with some distributors so I'll be keeping my eyes open for them once we're back in the states.
From there we visited the medieval town of San Gimignano (say it again with your best Italian accent and hand gestures).
And to top it off San Gimignano has a seriously serious photo-worthy-door & street game ... #instagram
For our trip to Tuscany we used a tour group called Fun In Tuscany. I scoured trip advisor and the interwebs & stumbled upon this one. We wanted a private tour and our guide, Christian, was the friendliest and sweetest man. We found out that he and Asher actually share a birthday and from then on he became a part of our family for the day.
He went above and beyond, playing with Asher while we tasted wines, making extra stops so we could show Asher some farm animals and even stayed with us an extra hour so that he could take us to the best sunset view in Florence. I mean, really, above and beyond.
It was a truly perfect day. And really a perfect trip. It was everything I had hoped it would be, but ... we wish we had an extra 2 days! (I told you!) We've traveled a lot since living here and there are a few places that we'd love to see again, Florence being one of them. Next time, we'd do 2 days in Florence and then AT LEAST 2 days in Tuscany. Stay at an Agriturismo or two and really soak up that Tuscan sun.
PS. this was only like 1/3 of the photos I took....
Embrace the Wilde,
lindsey
