honeymoon adventures in florence and siena

Matthew and I went to Florence for a day and a half. We took the train from the countryside and it was an easy 35 minute ride. We got off at the Santa Maria Nigella station and went in search of our hotel. I didn’t realize that you can walk the span of the city in about a half hour, so we covered a lot of ground just getting there. I was also surprised to find that Florence was full of so a lot of tourists, many from the United States. Florence is a main study abroad location so there were tons of American college students roaming the streets. Florence seemed so far removed from the other Italian cities we had visited so far. Even Rome, a very international city, had that Italian character. Matthew joked that Florence was really “Little America.” People in Florence immediately started speaking to you in English and we found many of the restaurant recommendations disappointing. We didn’t want to have that touristy experience so we referenced emails from friends and also asked the locals. I had both the worst pizza and worst gnocchi in all of Italy in Florence-what you would expect of airplane food, but airplane food is better. I know I was only there for a short time so perhaps on a longer visit I could have found some better places. Matthew and I still had a lot of fun roaming the streets, looking at the San Lorenzo leather market, and crossing the Ponte Vecchio. Oh, and he’s reminding me that we also had some really good tiramisu right before we got on the train to leave!

Siena, on the other hand, was a little more to our liking. We parked outside the city and walked in because no cars are allowed within the city center. We walked around, saw the famous Piazza del Campo {Twilight fans, New Moon was filmed here!}, ordered some paninis from a local deli and ate them on a little street bench. It was a very warm afternoon but by the time we were leaving it was starting to drizzle! That didn’t stop us, though, from getting some hazelnut and dark chocolate gelato from Grom. So yummy! We ran back to the car and by then it was pouring. So fun!