FLORENCE

Apr 5, 2015
2 min read

The next city on our list of places to visit was Florence, and after the catastrophic trip to Rome it was a nice change of scenery, even after the 3-4 hour train journey. Luckily we found the hostel we were staying in fairly quickly and for a €20 a night charge, the room was heavenly compared to the cold and wet tent we were previously occupying. Sadly we arrived too late to actually do any sightseeing on our first day, and so we decided on going to an aperitivo and visiting a few bars and clubs.

The next day we ventured out to properly explore the city, and thankfully the weather was much nicer than the day before. Florence, the capital of Italy’s Tuscany region and the birthplace of the Renaissance, has a number of great things to offer including masterpieces of art and beautiful architecture. Some of the places we visited were the Gucci Museum, dedicated to the iconic Italian fashion house incorporating classic clothing & handbag exhibits. I was really excited to go to this exhibition as I couldn’t previously attend the uni trip to Florence, and this was one of the main places I wanted to visit. I really enjoyed finding out more about the designer’s heritage and examining the iconic pieces from important eras like the 70s, and gowns designed for celebrities such as Jessica Chastain or Salma Hayek. We grabbed a quick coffee near the beautiful Piazza Della Signoria, explored the Palazzo Vecchio and its museum, and the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella. Taking a quick break we were lucky to witness a traditional puppet show held outside the city’s church which was very cleverly put on by an older couple.

We were feeling exhausted by the whole trip, and sadly were a little too tired to continue finding tourist destinations, therefore we made our way back to the train station to go back home. However, making the mistake of not buying our tickets the day before and the day being a public holiday, we were left with a choice of either paying a staggering €120 for a single ticket to Milan or finding out a cheaper way of getting home. We wasted about 4 hours frantically trying to organise a BlaBlaCar that would take all three of us back to Milan - a task that proved to be very difficult. Feeling incredibly annoyed with each other and the situation itself, we decided there was no other choice but to stay another night in a hotel; which meant spending an additional €80, including a train ticket home. I wished we’d organised the trip better as we wasted A LOT of time looking for places, or trying to organise things that we should’ve thought about before we even left Milan. However, learning from these mistakes, I now know how not to travel in the future.