2 nights in Florence

View of Duomo and Baptistery from our room.
see all photos »

After our 3 nights in Sorrento, we headed north for Florence. The second snag in our train travel experience came when we arrived in Naples from Sorrento. We got off at the wrong station this time, but were quickly guided to the correct station as soon as we asked for help at the information counter. We weren't that far off. The train from Naples to Florence was a Eurostar, the best of the passenger trains in Europe. It is smooth, fast, and quiet. However, don't order cappuccino in the cafe car. It's cold and weak!

"Gates of Paradise" on Baptistery
see all photos »

All our hotel selections (besides Venice) were from Rick Steves'

Home of the Renaissance (and David)

book. He chose places that weren't too expensive and were a reasonable distance from the train station. Our hotel in Florence had a spectacular view. It was also the hotel that brought our breakfast to our room every morning. About 8am, the host would bring a tray to our room with pastries, hard boiled eggs, juice, and coffee. It was a treat to have spice muffins both mornings.

Ponte Vecchio
see all photos »

When choosing restaurants, we also referred to Rick Steves' book. A lot of times we were at restaurants filled with mostly Rick Steves' readers. It made for great conversation starters when we had our book laying on the table. One restaurant gave us free limoncello for having the book.

One of our favorite restaurants on our trip was in Florence. We chose a place that was off the tourist path. We asked for a table for two by holding up 2 fingers and saying due (doo-eh) and were sat at one end of a long table with a couple and their daughter at the other. We ordered a mezzo liter of wine and some water, no gas. Italians drink mineral water, so the easy way to order non-carbonated water is to ask for it with no gas. You can also say natural or still, which we learned later.

The menu was in Italian, but our server ended up speaking English, as well as French we heard when he was at the table next to us. It seemed the thing to do was to have the full course meal at this place, so that's what we did. We ordered pasta, an entree, and dessert. We ordered one course at a time, the server came back in between courses and asked what we wanted next. The portions weren't that big here, so it worked out great. The food, we thought, was fabulous. We liked it so much that we ripped out the page in our Rick Steves' book and gave it to another couple we visited with in Vernazza.

We did see Michelangelo's David statue while in Florence, but they don't let you take pictures of him.