This was our fifth day of our Italy trip and our second day in Florence. We did A LOT this day, so bear with me. 🙂
You can see my other Italy recaps below:
Rome, Day 1 recap HERE.
Rome, Day 2 recap HERE.
Rome, Day 3 recap HERE.
Florence, Day 1 recap HERE.
We had a wonderful hot breakfast at our hotel, Plaza Lucchesi. I collected nutella pouches and jars from all of our hotels for my running coach. She loves nutella, just like me!
Tour of the Gallery of the Academy of Florence
We started the morning with a tour of the Gallery of the Academy of Florence, which is also home of Michelangelo’s sculpture David. We waited in line for over an hour to get in to see the David and that was with a tour! I can’t imagine how long you would wait without being in a tour. Our tour guide was amazing and his description and history that he shared with us about the David made it even more special when we finally saw the statue for the first time. 
We spent most of the time in the gallery learning about Michelangelo’s David and we got a little time to explore the rest of the museum.
Duomo (Basilica of Saint Mary)
Next up on the tour was the Duomo, which you really can’t miss when you visit Florence.
This is what the dome looks like from the inside.
The outside of this basilica is candy to the eye, there is so much detail.
The bell tower to the basilica and a close up of one of the statues from the outside.
Inside the basilica, the altar and the photo on the right shows a votive (prayer) candle area.
Lunch
We had lunch at Yellow Bar. The salads were so fresh in Italy. We would add our own oil and vinegar at the table. We had house wine and homemade pasta with meat sauce. So good!
Dessert after dinner was gelato at Venchi, the chocolate store with the flowing chocolate wall!
Ponte Vecchio
Ponte Vecchio (old bridge) is a covered bridge in Florence, Italy built on the narrowest part of the Arno river. Butchers used to have shops on the bridge, but now it is mostly jewelers.
A view from on top of the bridge.
Me. 🙂
This reminded me of the love locks on the Pont des Arts bridge in Paris.
A jewelry shop on top of the bridge.
Our tour in the afternoon included the Uffizi art gallery. This is a view of the narrow courtyard between the two wings of the palace.
A view inside of one of the wings.
The walls were originally covered with tapestries.
Some of the Paintings in Uffizi:
Botticelli’s Birth of Venus
Piero della Francesca’s Dukes of Urbino
Michelangelo’s Tondo (meaning round frame) Doni.
Outside the Uffizi we saw this man and he really did look like a statue at first!
Signora Plaza (Government Square)
This is where The David was originally.
Dinner
For dinner we were craving Italian pizza again. We ate at Cecina Torcicoda. I had to have it everyday we were in Italy! I got a margarita pizza (my favorite) and Brian had some sort of pizza with mozzarella and sausages. The photo pictured above is of my pizza. 🙂 You’ll see my dessert pictured above, but I can’t remember what it was… it was really good, though!
That’s a wrap on Florence! Next Friday I’ll be sharing my LAST Italy post, our one day we spent in Venice!
