Finally getting out of Rome, we arrived in Florence very excited about our new Airbnb. We had picked it because of its amazing deck, overlooking the city and surrounding areas, and the view did not disappoint!

The apartment was very tiny compared to the deck, probably 1/3 the size, but it suited our needs and came with AC! We relaxed for the rest of the evening, making some pasta and taking the opportunity to watch the sunset from our deck.

The next day we set out into the city, exploring the beautiful architecture and stunning bridges. We were not quite prepared for how expensive things would be during the high-season, with each church charging around €7 for entry, leaving us to just admire the buildings from the outside. The one thing that we did want to splurge for was the Uffizi Gallery, so we headed over to buy advance tickets so that we wouldn’t have to wait in a long line to get in.

We bought tickets for Saturday (two days later) and were really excited, despite spending over our entire budget for a day on those two tickets. (The total for two tickets was $55 and we are trying to stick to $50 per day).

After getting the tickets we set out for a panini place we’d heard about from some friends to grab some lunch. It was really confusing to find because all of the streets wound around each other, but when we arrived we found that it was closed! There was a paper sign in the window saying that the owner was on vacation for a few weeks, that’s what we get for coming during August I guess! Disappointed, we made a new plan to find the public library’s cafeteria because we knew it was nearby.

We’d read that the public library had a cheap cafeteria with an amazing view of the Duomo, we just had to find it, which was no easy feat. We searched for 15 mins or so before giving up and walking the other way… only to run into it! Funny how life works. We wound through the very complicated building to the back, where we finally found the cafe! We ordered sandwiches and juice – and watched them make the juice in front of us! We enjoyed the views and the delicious fresh juice!

Since we could see the Duomo from the library, we decided to head there next. We’d read online that we could get in for free, so we wanted to see the beautiful building from the inside. We walked up to see a line – bummer. We continued to follow it to find the back – and found more people. We followed the line all the way around half of the base of the huge building, and the line wasn’t moving! We are still shocked that people joined the line after seeing how long it was- we did not! We talked about visiting another morning before the crowds, but never had the chance – something to do next time!

We walked around a bit more and saw some beautiful churches and other buildings before deciding that the heat was too much and heading back to our airbnb to relax before dinner. We recuperated for an hour or so before heading out on foot to a pizza place we’d read about that would have lines around the block. The pizza place was 45 minutes away by foot, but we were determined and were only thinking about the pizza that would be waiting for us there.

When we finally arrived we were met with another paper sign that said it was closed for a personal vacation! We were super bummed, and frustrated that these places didn’t advertise their closures anywhere online. Both the panini place and this pizza place had many groups of disappointed people standing outside like us. Becca made a plan while Ryan sulked, sad that he wouldn’t get the pizza he was dreaming of.

We headed to a food market which would have tons of options to choose from. Ryan got a pizza, similar to the one we would have gotten at the original spot, maybe even better! Becca got dumplings which she’d been craving for weeks – so good! We headed back and went to sleep early because we planned to go to the beach the next day and were going to get an early start!

Heading to the beach was pretty easy, there was a train that went directly there and only had a few stops! We realized halfway through that we were actually on the commuter train – as we were surrounded by street vendors heading to the beach, rather than tourists. When we got there we made our way to the water, trying to find some public beaches we’d read about online. The beach is predominantly private beach clubs which rent chairs by the day, but they are required by law to have a stretch of public beach available, so we opted for that. We had heard they were small but didn’t want to pay the ~€20 for an umbrella and chairs at the private sections of the beach.

Initially, we walked straight past the public beach. After a lot of confusion, and the help of maps on our phones we finally found it. There is really no way to describe it other than a strip. There is maybe a stretch of 1/2 a mile of sand from the sidewalk to the water which was about as wide as the average driveway! We were laughing while we walked to the front, finding a few dozen people already posted up by the water. Despite the comically small size of the beach, it was perfect for what we wanted. It was even better knowing that the beach was only there because it was required, and so small to keep people from using it – budget travel at its finest!

We set up our “towel” made up of a scarf and a table runner we found and lounged and read for a few hours, learning the right phrases to convince the vendors to leave us alone (thanks loud local Italians!) and soaked up the sun. We took turns getting in the water and watching our things, since we had to have our passports on us to use our Eurail passes for the train. It was a great way to spend the morning, and we finished our time at the beach by walking in the water along all the private stretches. It was amazing how few people were in each section of the private beach, with only a few of the thousands of chairs being filled at any given point.

We made our way back to the train station, stopping for some gelato on the way, before catching what we thought was the same train we had taken this morning back to Florence. Things started out fine, with us going through the same stops we had before, but after three stops we stayed in Pisa for a little longer than normal (~10 minutes). When we finally started moving again it was back in the same direction we had come from! Before we knew it, we had ended up at the stop for the beach again.

We were very confused why there hadn’t been any major announcements about the reversal of the route, but we took it in stride and figured out the next train time. After a few minutes we were back on our way to Florence, this time for good!

Not wanting to run into the same issues as the previous day, we decided to make dinner in again. We settled on quesadillas and guac, as Becca had been craving guac and avocados the entire trip! Finding most of the ingredients was relatively easy except for the avocados, which were absoluely massive! We’d never seen any this big in the states and were stunned by them.

We weren’t sure if one was going to be enough for Becca’s guac recipe, but it turned out to be plenty, having more than two avocados worth in one! The dinner turned out great and we were happy to fill our cravings.

The next morning Becca woke up at 5:30 and couldn’t get back to sleep, so she sat out on the amazing patio and watched the sun rise and listened to the distant bells of the Duomo. Such a lovely way to wake up. Once Ryan was awake, we got ready to head to the Uffizi Gallery for the day.

We spent about 3 hours at the Uffizi, exploring all of the rooms and seeing amazing art! Some highlights included:

• Seeing the Birth of Venus painting
• An interesting exhibit on the man who created the sculpture that was in front of the Twin Towers when they were hit on 9/11 including a short film about it and some of his other work – mostly stick figures through paintings and sculpture
• The Annunciation
• A film critiquing the way that people interact with art today (taking photos of the art without really looking at it first) with footage from the museum a few months prior

After the museum we dropped by the grocery store again to get some dinner – partially because we loved cooking in the kitchenette at the airbnb and partially because we spent our whole budget for the day on the tickets for the museum! We made a simple pesto pasta and watched a quick movie before bed.

We woke up early the next morning so that we could stop in Pisa on our way to Cinque Terre.

Ryan had been to Pisa before, but Becca had not, so she was excited to see the leaning tower in real life. It was much smaller than she expected, but cool none the less. The funniest part about the whole experience was people watching – we probably could have done it all day and never gotten bored. Watching hundreds of people pose strangely for photos that look like they are holding up a leaning tower is a funny phenomenon.

We didn’t stay long, just took a few photos (guilty) and then headed back to the train station to go to Cinque Terre!

We are a little behind on blog posts, Florence was about a week ago, so stay tuned as we attempt to catch up!