Day 9: Venice to Florence

We woke up a few times in the middle of the night to stalk and kill the mosquitoes buzzing around our room. By morning, my bite count was 11, and Marc finally had 2. We had a little bit of trouble checking out of our hotel and were worried about the time, but we made it to the train with extra time to spare. Travel by train was so much easier than our plane flights. We didn't need to find transportation to the airport, go through security, or arrive several hours early. The train also had comfortable seats and outlets. It was a pleasant journey.

Upon arrival in Florence, we grabbed maps at the tourist station and tried to familiarize ourselves with the layout of the city and the path from the train station to our hotel. The entire city of Florence is very small, it never took us more than 10 minutes to walk anywhere. After a sweaty, suitcase-lugging trek to our hotel, we were greeted by working air conditioning and a private bathroom. It felt very luxurious.

We settled in, then went out to lunch. We found an adorable little restaurant down the block from our hotel and had our first Italian pizza and gnocchi. After lunch, we visited Santa Croce and the famous Florence leather market. One of the shops was giving a workshop to a group of American students instructing them on how to distinguish genuine leather from fake. A couple of blocks away from the leather market was Vivoli, arguably the best gelateria in the world. We had a mix of chocolate mousse and chocolate hazelnut, probably the most delicious and smoothest gelato we tasted while in Italy. We topped off our tour of Florence sights with visits to the Palazzo Vecchio, the Piazza della Signoria, Uffizi, and the Ponte Vecchio.

We had dinner reservations that evening at La Gisotra, a dimly lit romantic restaurant with strings of lights and many candles. The waitress brought us free flutes of champagne as soon as we sat down, and we also received a huge free appetizer sampler. The boar pasta and pear ravioli we ordered were wonderful. We ended our evening with a short stroll past the Baptistry, Campanille, Duomo, Piazza della Repubblica, and San Lorenzo.