Florence. January – Right before the pandemic
The bus leaves us on the side of the highway. At first we don’t know which way to go and we start to belive that we got lost, but then we see the tram station. It’s a single T1 line that goes to city center. The ticket costs 1.5 euros.
We are now close to the accommodation so we go by foot. On our way we find the most impressive church I have ever seen. Huge and with interesting architecture.
Fascinated, we walk around it and it seems like it never ends. From this point on we began to feel the charm of Florence.
As we are passing the river over Ponte alle Grazie we see another weird bridge that we plan to go on tomorrow. Ponte Vecchio
As the sun sets we continue our walk and start climbing on a hill to arrive in Piazzale Michelangelo. We are enchanted by how beautiful the whole city looks from here. We find the statue of David whose genitals will haunt us tomorrow through all the shops in the form of magnets, trinkets, stickers and postcards.
On our way downhill we find all kinds of illuminated fountains which look spectacular as the night comes
David 
I slowly realize that I have made the mistake I had heard of: going on a trip with new shoes :)). I had just bought boots that I was very excited about. It’s just that I didn’t had the chance to wear them very much and now my feet hurts.
We pass through Porta San Niccolo and go to a restaurant at the end of our street. Chosen by Seby of course, because he feels like there we will have the best food. The atmosphere is beautiful, friendly staff, good food, coperto only 1 euro. We pay around 24 euros on food and beer.
We are full and we know that a bottle of wine is waiting for us at home, so we take the dessert on the go.
In the morning we leave for Piazza San Marco.
On our way we pass Fontana Del Porcellino, a sculpture of a wild boar. It is said that if you put a coin in his mouth and it falls though the bars, you will be lucky, and if you rub your hand on the nose of the pig you will surely return to Florence. It was obvious that we weren’t lucky enough for the coin to fall where it needed to, but we hope to return here sometime.
We take a look to the shops and see everything from jewelry to chocolate that runs on the walls, from colorful rubber ducks to leather bags and suddenly we smell chestnuts.
We cross the river Arno over the amazing bridge Ponte Vecchio. It looks incredible.
We find out that Pinocchio has his origins here and we want to visit a store dedicated to him on Via della Condotta.
However there are some less attractive aspects to this part of Italy. There are some african people (I think) approaching you on the streets and they want to sell you something. They start by asking you questions and then even if you don’t want to, they give you a bracelet and tell you a sad story. In the end they ask you to give them some money.
They are everywhere from Venice to here. It all starts with “Hello my friend!!” and when you hear that, you know you are doomed. As a romanian I thought I was used to that because all the gipsies that live in our country, but these people seem to be a lot more aggressive. If you don’t want to buy, ignore them. Or at least try.
Tonight we cooked carbonara and drank red wine. Initially we wanted bolognese but the minced meat is hard to find and it is also very expensive.
If I had to pick the city that I liked the most it would be Florence. It was financially accessible and it had beautiful architecture. All in all it was the most impressive.
And now, to Rome.
Travel notebook 