Part 2 - Florence

I've read that Florence is the city for the art lover. Our short stay there was a bit of a whirlwind so our take on the city of Florence was a little different.  We arrived by train late Sunday afternoon and after finding our apartment we decided to find a great restaurant and regroup. We had walked through a 'sketchy' area on our way to the apartment so we took a different route this time. We didn't want to walk a great distance to find something to eat but yet wanted to find something 'authentic' so we could enjoy the Italian culture and food. We also wanted to be back to our apartment before dark because well... quite frankly we didn't want to be lost in this huge city in the dark!

We walked...and walked... and walked a bit more. We finally spotted a convenience store (and I use that term loosely) which had snacks, wine, etc. We asked the owners for their suggestion of a restaurant close by. They told us the hotel across the street had a restaurant but most things were closed at that time on a Sunday. We decided to try the hotel restaurant. The hotel lobby was dark, old, creepy and smelled like a boy's locker room. There was not a soul in sight. We looked at each other and raised our eyebrows in doubt. None of us thought this was a great option so we turned around and left without ever seeing the restaurant or a person for that matter. We did however find a Subway and a McDonalds down the block. ha! There was NO way were eating at Subway or McDonalds while we were in Italy. Surely we'd find something. We kept walking. Evening was quickly approaching and we were getting a little antsy to get back to the apartment before dark. When we turned the corner we saw the convienience store again and decided that THIS was our best option. 

 After surveying our choices (or lack thereof) we walked out with 4 bottles of wine, cheese, salami, chocolate cookies, chocolate bars and crackers! We took our Italian art city food purchases back to the apartment and had a feast. It was fun!

Our primary reason for stopping in Florence was to take a day trip to see the leaning tower of Pisa. The next morning we had a scheduled tour to climb the 297 steps of the tower so we had a specific time frame to arrive. The only problem - we forgot to buy train tickets so we needed to get up early to get back to the train station in time. We'll need to set the alarm I think!