The train from Rome to Florence took about an hour and forty-five minute.  It rained quite heavily for most of the trip, but when we arrived in Florence in the early afternoon, it was cool and overcast but no rain.  The Florence Rail Station was easy to navigate, especially since the platform we arrived on was in the center of the station.  We took a taxi to the hotel and then started working out our itinerary.  Originally we planned to spend our first half day walking around Florence and then go to the outlet mall the following morning.  But after talking with the concierge on the shuttle times, we decided to head up to the mall that afternoon and then spend the full day in Florence the following day.

With the shuttle scheduled to depart in about an hour, we had the quickest lunch while we were in Italy.  After dropping our bags in our room, we just grabbed a slice of pizza and a pork sandwich at a nearby café.  The pizza was not bad, but the pork sandwich turned out really good, not just how tender it was but with just the right spice mixtures.  We then made a small circle around the neighborhood, where we noticed that many shops were closed in the early afternoon hours.

The most interesting part of the drive to the mall was the ride into the middle of the town to pick up additional passengers.  It gave us a peek into the city.  If we thought Rome had narrow streets, Florence’s streets were even narrower in many places; surprised cars can even get through. But the things we saw seemed to be something very worthwhile to explore.

We had three hours at the mall, which had about a couple dozens of higher end stores, including Gucci, Burberry, Bottega Veneta, Ferragamo, Dior, etc. (Prada didn’t have a store there; it has a standalone outlet store about another hour away.)    Unfortunately timing wasn’t good for us, as on the day we went, Gucci, the biggest store there, was closed for taking inventory.  Nonetheless, Jessica picked up a few bags of stuff at the other stores.

After we returned to Florence around 7PM, we decided to go to one of the nearby restaurants for dinner.  We weren’t expecting much, but we wandered past one that looked full and had a Michelin recommendation.  They had two tables outside, which we took to get a seat right away.  We ordered some chicken liver pate for appetizer, a traditional Tuscan Fettuccine with prawns, pasta with wild boar sauce and a side order of spinach.  And for dessert, we had a pastry with apple inside with lots of vanilla cream.  Everything tasted great; overall, it was probably the best overall meal we had in Italy.

The next day, after breakfast in the hotel, we started walking toward the city center.  Along the way, we stopped in a number of small shops and picked up a few gifts.  The city’s local shops were the type that my wife find interesting as it had some unique items that you don’t find in chain stores.

Navigating around the streets in Florence can be difficult despite its relatively small footprint.  We were trying to get to the Dumo, but we kept getting astray in our direction.  First, we ended near the Uziffi museum.   That turned out well since it allowed us to scope where we had to go for our reservation into the museum later that afternoon.  Then we wandered into St. Croce Square.  This area had a lot of leather shops as it is where many of the tanneries were located in the old days.

We had lunch in the only place that I had written down before the trip.  My wife tried the Tuscan tomato soup while I had the Spaghetti with meat balls as our first dish, and we split an organic chicken breast Tuscan style for the second dish.  This is where we discovered that Tuscan style soup mixed with bread has virtually no liquid.  It tasted good, but very heavy and not what we considered ‘soup’.  The spaghetti and meat ball was good, but the chicken was one of the better dishes we had.

After lunch we finally were able to find our way to the Dumo.    It is a dominating structure with its size relative to other buildings in the area.  The area is filled shops and vendors.  The interior of the church is not unlike most of the churches we have seen in Italy.  The special part of the Dumo was an opportunity to go up to the roof level.  But with the line was long, and it was getting close to our appointment time, we decided to head down toward the museum.

Uziffi is one of the renowned museums in the world, with its collection of Roman art and artifacts, as well as Renaissance art.  It contains works by Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo.  And it is a huge gallery.  Because we were visiting it toward the end of a long day of walking around the town, we may have done one of the fastest tours of the museum, along with plenty of rest during the tour as well.   We try to find the real Michelangelo’s David.   But then found out that it is actually located in Galleria dell’Accademia on the other end of town.  So we decided to make do with the copy of the statue outside of Palazzo Vecchio, next door to Uziffi.

After exiting Uziffi, we went over to the Ponte Vechhe area.  This is the unique city center place with shops on both side of the bridge that cross the River Arno.  With the sunset background, it was an opportunity for more pictures.

We then took a slow walk back to hotel, where we would have dinner tonight.  Along the way, we did some window browsing on some of the shops that were still open.   The walk in the twilight showcases Florence, where the city still retains its old-world charm despite being a high volume tourist hub.

The following day, we set out to spend the day in Siena.  After breakfast, we took the short walk to the train station.  There is an hourly train from Florence to Siena, and we got tickets on the next train out.   The train to Siena took about an hour and a fairly pleasant ride.  But what was difficult was that there was not really any direction on how to get into town from the train station.  There are buses and taxi, but not really know where we want to go, it doesn’t help too much.  We finally bought a map at the store at the train station.  As we walked outside the station to figure out where to head, we decided to follow a group of people walking out of the station area.  Comparing the route we were heading and the map, we figured out the direction were heading.  We were heading toward one of the city gates.   As we got near, we started walking along the tall city wall.  Cars were parked along the road as we walked.   As we later discovered, there is very little parking space within the old town.  It took us about twenty minutes we walked to that city gate.  Once inside we started to think about where we want to go.   With no particular place in mind to visit first or see, we decided just to pick a route.  As we walked we discovered that Siena is a very hilly town.  Literally, you are walking up and down the hill to go across the town.  Nonetheless, despite the hill, it is still a walking city, with something to see on every block, and the hills added to the view of this beautiful town.  One can argue that there is too much tourism and related activity today to make it as authentic as it once was.  Nonetheless, Siena still offers quite a bit for people to see and do.

We first just walked along the back streets and looked at the well preserved buildings, with a number of them seem to go back to 17^th or 18^th century.  Then we reached Plaza Matteotti, where a lot of shops start to appear, mostly local stores, but a few name brand ones mixed in as well.   We walked toward Basilica di S. Domenico, which is one of the prominent churches in town.  It also sits in area that offers some spectacular view of the town.  There was a little garden area next to the church that had a great view of Siena’s Dumo and the surrounding hillside.

After taking some photos, we started toward Il Campo, Siena’s clam shaped town plaza where twice a year they hold the Palio, a horserace held among the different tribes/districts of Siena.  But before we got there, we decided to grab a quick bite to eat.  We found a small little restaurant on the side of a street on a hill.  The table outside had leveler on the legs to keep the table even.  The menu was not elaborate; we picked out a penne dish and a salad dish to start.  Then, as we saw dishes other people were ordering, we added a pork dish that we thought looked good.  The dish turned out to be really delicious and we were glad we ordered it.  Even though Siena is mostly a tourist town today, this is still the kind of restaurant that one wants to find during travel.

There were many shops all around the streets as we approached Il Campo. Inside the plaza, there were numerous restaurants along curve side of the place, with the long side of the plaza house the Palazzo Pubblico, which serves as a museum today.  A tall tower sits in this of complex buildings, which is the tallest secular monument from the Middle Ages that remains in Tuscany.   With a sunny day, the plaza itself was filled with people.  Some of the pizza shops around the plaza had slices for 2 Euro each.  I was kind of tempted, but then decided to go with a gelato instead.   We then proceed around the shops just looking around, picking up some small local made items.

Then we headed toward the Siena Dumo, Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta.  This gothic structure was started in the 12^th century and has a number of marble intarsia design on the floor.  Around the cathedral, there is a plaza with a interesting mix of vendors and ‘artists’ performing.   We walked around the town some more after leaving the Dumo, peeking into some of the buildings and shops, before headed back to the train station for our 5PM train back to Florence.

Once back in Florence, we headed to a restaurant that we saw earlier in the morning that we felt like a good place for our final night in Florence.   James picked a main dish of short ribs and with sauté mussels as antipasti and lobster ravioli as the first dish.  Jessica ordered a seafood soup and baked sea bass.  This was the one place where the portion size was much bigger than anticipated.   The sauté mussels was a huge bowl that probably had like 50 mussels in it.  Jessica’s soup was almost the same size; the difference between the two is the soup had some clams and more liquid.  After eating those two dishes and then the lobster ravioli, we were almost full.   We both only end up eating about half of the main course.   While the food wasn’t bad, we felt we could have done better, with the meal we had the first night still in our minds.

The next morning, after we packed and stored our luggage at the hotel, we headed back into town to take one final walk.  First we headed toward Piazza Lorenzo.  The area is named for the church, but the place is now filled with street vendors selling leather and souvenir items.  But the place that we wanted to see is the San Lorenzo market.  This is a two-story market place that sells produce, meat, spices, flowers, etc.  This is once Florence’s central market, where the local get their fresh produce and meat.  With the rise of supermarkets, it had become less important.  But with the recent interest in fresh food, the market is getting more attention once again.   While there, we grabbed a roast beef sandwich that we both thought was great; another example of finding local food in non-traditional places.

Leaving San Lorenzo, we browsed the local stores as we wind our way to River Arno to the other side.  We found one leather store that had some good and reasonable price items for wallets and bags.  In Florence, in many of the shops, you can see people making things they sell in the shop.  It makes buying the products seem a bit more authentic.

We headed toward Pitti Palace once we crossed the river.  This is originally built by a rich merchant who wanted to show off his wealth, which today hosts a number of museums.   It also has a huge garden ground (Boboli Garden).  The palace and the garden has a dominate footprint of the area.  A large plaza sits outside its front gate, which is slanted upward toward the plaza from the street.  Along the street outside of the palace is lined with shops and restaurants.  We walked southward looking to see if we can work around our way to Michelangelo Plaza from the backend as we window shop at stores and the buildings in the area.  The area may not be too special compare to other places in Florence, but it does have that great neighborhood feeling, where the width of the streets, type of shops and size of the building seem just right. 

After about 45 minutes and still haven’t ‘turn the corner’, we decided to just head back to the Ponte Vecchio for lunch.  We walked along the river to see if we could find one that faces it.  We finally settled on one that was next to Ponte Vecchio with a floor to ceiling window facing the river.   While the food was fine, the view as we ate was summed up the trip we had.   As we looked at the sun lit building across the river with the clear blue sky above, it just made us feel that we can stay there forever and just laid back and enjoy the quiet pace that Florence offers.

After lunch, before heading back to pick up our bags, we set off for one final purchase:  local chocolates.  What we didn’t count on was that the shops that we had looked at to buy shut its doors between 1PM and 3PM like many shops in the area.  Thus, we decided to walk around some more and spend some more time along the river, giving us another opportunity to soak in the scenery before leaving.

As we waited at the train station for our train to start our journey back home, we both agreed that while we have seen and did a lot, it is just the beginning of our discovery of Italy.