One of my 4 euro shirts from Pull and Bear.
We slept in today, which is the kind of thing you think you love until you actually do it, and then you feel like the first half of the day is wasted. Plus we missed out on breakfast at our fancy hotel!
We got ourselves ready and ended up having a hard time catching a taxi to the Automobile Club of Italia to find out about getting our licenses translated (we're still trying to figure out the rental car thing) and our taxi driver revealed Italy is a little screwy right now due to the strikes.
On our way back we finally, finally, had a good meal. It was at The Oil Shoppe, packed with American tourists, a full English menu, and exactly the kind of place I would normally avoid. Justine on Twitter said she lived in Florence for 5 months and loved it though, and now we understand why all the college kids go there. Delicious paninis with interesting flavors.
More gelato of course, this time at a little chocolate shop where I picked up a little surprise for someone. Very, very good. The chocolate shops make my favorite gelato thus far because they are little artisan places that make it themselves.
We had an afternoon break while TH worked on car rental stuff and I mapped out the restaurants and gellaterias we wanted to visit during our time in Florence. I stepped outside and took this picture on our private balcony.
We made our way to the camera store, where I bought my second charger of the trip, this one was Canon brand so it actually worked, unlike the other. Forgetting my camera battery charger at home was a very expensive mistake.
Next, it was some treats at Arte del Cioccolato. Oh my goodness, this pricy little place is a must visit. So worth it as a spurge (I mean, it wasn't insane, just 1 euro more than most for a piccolo gelato).
We walked around the duomo, in hopes we could climb the tower but it was about to close. Another great picture-of-the-two-of-us photo op experience though! Thank you to the kind girl who took several pictures of us and really got into it, even squatting down a little to get a better angle :)
We were making our way to a place called Club Paradiso (recommended to us by the same girl who told us about the awesome lunch place we ate at), when I spotted a trendy looking restaurant that called itself a mozzarella bar. Typical Italian? Certainly not. But we've realized we aren't typical Italian food kind of people.
We LOVED our meal and the vacation was dreamy again. Bad food can, and has, ruined trips for me. We plan to go back again for lunch tomorrow, it was that good.
As we walked home I felt so happy I wanted to sing. Unfortunately I couldn't think of the right song. Is there a tune about loving life, loving your lover, loving where you are right in that moment? That's the song I wanted to be singing.
Yay for finding a charger! I forgot my camera charger in Tokyo when touring Japan, and apparently they are only available on special order (taking 2 weeks). So we have basically no photos for that trip (really sad, Japan is so beautiful).
ReplyDeleteI think the cheap, simple food in Italy is actually better than the fancy stuff anyway. Have you eaten minestrone yet?
Thank you for tweeting about that mozzarella, I'm definitely going to visit one of the LA locations, it sounds amazing! And that last paragraph was just so sweet.. Glad you're having fun again!
ReplyDeleteGood song?! Hello!
ReplyDeleteJason mraz & Colbie Caillet "lucky"... Or Colbie Caillet's "bubbly" or even just Jason Mraz "i'm yours!"
Near the train station in Florence, I had amazing pizza. It's a small shop with an exposed brick oven as you walk in. The waiter had a mickey mouts pin on and was happy to speak English. The Margarita pizza was so good (and it was right next to our hotel) we (2 Americans) at there 2 dinners in a row before decidign we had better try something else before leaving Florence. If you are still ther and can find this small restaurant, I recommend the pizza. I have no idea what the name was but it was walking distance from the train station, next to a small hotel and has an open kitchen. 'm sure it'S also quite affordable as we were eating there as students.
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