Our Time in Florence, Italy - Part Three

We left Venice in a minivan (six of us + luggage) and headed to our next destination, Florence.  To add a little more excitement, the minivan was a stick shift.  You can just imagine the European Vacation references we made as we entered each round-about!  I'll go into more detail about that later in a travel tips post.

 foyer

We rented a four bedroom apartment through Trip Advisor that was everything you would picture an apartment in Florence to be!  The ceilings in the main rooms and a bedroom were all hand painted and the lighting was gorgeous!

 dining room

 dining room

 our bedroom

herringbone wood floors throughout as seen in this very long hallway :)

glass counters in our bathroom + a perfect cup of espresso

Our apartment was located just across the Ponte Vecchio (1345) which was only a short walk to shop and dine.  And lucky for us, Gelateria la Carraia was very close to our apartment for those moments when you just have to have gelato (which was a daily occurrence)!

Like Venice, Florence is filled with beautiful buildings and structures, many of which are adorned with flowers.

The Duomo which is Europe's 4th largest church and the tallest building in Florence, is located in the heart of the city.

It's really impossible to get a picture of the entire building at once because it is enormous!

During the day, the streets are filled with tourists taking full advantage of the great shopping in the city.  This picture was taken late at night after a wonderful dinner at Frescobaldi - we like to use our best Italian accent when saying this ;)

Michalangelo Square is perched on a hillside overlooking the beautiful city.  The drive up to the square was lovely and compares to a drive through the Hollywood Hills in LA only much older.

You might also like:

Our Time in Venice (part one)
Murano + Burano (part two)