The last leg of our Winter Break vacay brought us north from Rome to Florence… my old stomping grounds! (In the loosest sense of the word, as I haven’t been back in SIXTEEN years). Although it was a bummer to say goodbye to our family in Rome, it was exciting to be back in a city that I knew.
Our first stop was strictly to kill some time, as we had a couple hours until we could check into our Airbnb. In a very un-Brittany-and-Kyle-like way, we found a little restaurant and let the kids order whatever they wanted. Kennedie showed her maturity and ordered a margherita pizza, Blake went for a plate of fries, and Kannon opted for cheesecake. Go for it, kids.
Our Airbnb was in the city center which made it an easy walk to all the sights. The city was a little bit magical over the holidays; it was the first time I have seen Florence during Christmastime. White lights were strung across many of the streets and there were Christmas decorations at every turn.
Our Airbnb was located on Vigna Nuova, which was a 2 minute walk to Piazza Repubblica – a place I visited often during my year in Florence. It was so nostalgic! A major difference this time around was that our apartment was next door to Gucci. We didn’t do a ton of shopping there.
Although our arrival was met with cold and rainy weather and TONS of tourists (seriously, way more tourists than what we saw in Rome) our family made the best of it. The first few days of Firenze included carousel rides, street musicians, gelato, salami and vino, of course.
A huge part of our holiday in Europe (and Florence was no exception) was Kennedie learning how to make coffee for her parents every morning. Each Airbnb we stayed in had some sort of fancy coffee machine that Kennedie taught herself how to use and brought us coffee in bed EVERY MORNING.
Our coffee in Egypt has kinda sucked. Egypt knows how to do tea really well, but trying to buy a pound of coffee beans or freshly ground coffee to make a cup at home has proven difficult. While there are great coffee shops and its easy to order for delivery, sometimes it’s nice to be able to make it at home. We have a drip coffee maker but it makes horrible coffee and there is no such thing as delicious creamer, so it’s hard to hide the taste of the disgusting-ness. We even had family bring us Starbucks coffee from the states, and it’s better, but still not great. (Just ask poor Grandma Connie, who visited in October before we had acquired Starbucks coffee… she had to suffer through crap coffee every morning). Anywho, having a good cup of joe every morning changed my whole outlook on coffee in Egypt. More on that later.
Walking around Florence brought back all the memories and I loved seeing all the sights again! Sometimes the children were not as enthusiastic.
Just like in Rome, the food scene was excellent. Sadly, our children fell in love with a quaint little restaurant called Rose’s because they served cheeseburgers… and while we were pumped the kids had a restaurant to get excited about, Kyle made a few poor choice orders from the menu and had a very lackluster experience. Didn’t matter… we still went there three times because #kids.
Here we are waiting for Rose’s to open. Because when a restaurant in Italy opens at “7:00 pm” it’s really more of a suggested opening time because who eats at such an early hour in EUROPE? We do. Let us in. We are starving to death.
Rose’s brought us many happy meal memories (except for Kyle, obviously).
Since we spent so much of our life at Rose’s in a 6-day span, something was bound to go wrong. One fateful evening, I’m not sure exactly what happened but somehow Blakely suddenly pushed all her weight down on her elbows which she had propped on the table, and this caused the table to wobble and ALL THE ITEMS ON THE TABLE to slide dramatically toward the edge of the table where Blake’s dinner plate flew to the tile floor and shattered. Sorry Rose. We tipped a lot that night, then drank a bottle of wine called Pinocchio.
It was at Rose’s where Kyle also gave a gay couple a glowing recommendation for a plate of food he actually hated but he got nervous and doesn’t like confrontation so I’m pretty sure he told them the duck tagliatelle was delicious but he for sure didn’t think so.
Another fun outing we planned was a Fiorentina game! In preparation, we hit up the Fiorentina team store and bought a couple items so we’d look like the truest of fans. Since Kannon now has a jersey collection, this would be a perfect time to add to it. Kyle also got a jersey for the great price of only 30 Euros… steal of a deal! Kannon’s jersey didn’t have a price tag on it, but there was no way a kid’s jersey would be more expensive than an adult jersey, right? We bought a few items, paid in Euros, and headed back to the apartment. A few hours later whilst taking off tags, we saw that Kannon’s jersey DID in fact have a price tag on it and it was 95 EUROS! It made all of us a little sick to our stomachs. We therefore deemed Kannon’s jersey a very special piece of clothing that he must wear every day and never take off, and promised to be more vigilant when purchasing clothing in a foreign country. Yikes.
Please enjoy that little sliver of Kannon’s jersey that’s visible! You’re looking at like $15 of material right there.
I’m still not totally sure how the stadium didn’t catch on fire…
Soccer games in Italy are pretty fun, even though we struggled to easily get back to our apartment because the buses get quite full and Ubers are very expensive. At one point, 2 out of 3 kids had to go to the bathroom and there were no bathrooms to be found, so they squatted behind a line of parked Vespas. Still, worth it.
The next day, we ventured across the Ponte Vecchio to grab some of the best gelato in Florence… it’s a spot I loved back in the day. I was excited to see it’s still going strong!
Still my favorite gelato in Florence! The kids agreed.
Another exciting part of this trip was introducing the kids to art from the Renaissance. Although they made our trip to the Uffizi Gallery feel like a real chore and complained almost the ENTIRE time, there were definitely parts they enjoyed, even if they won’t admit it.
My favorite painting is Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus” and when I asked Kennedie what hers was, she turned and pointed to this one “because it has a GOAT.” Well played, my child.
Kannon’s favorite painting was this one because of the frightening monster/water beast.
The children continued their education of naked Renaissance bodies when we visited the David.
We spent New Years in our apartment and celebrated with a low key dinner and a movie with the kids.
One of the last places we visited was Santa Croce, my favorite church in the city.
Blake used this time to perfect her thumbs down pose in photos. Always fun to see that the 5-year-old ruined another photo op.
Santa Croce is also home to many famous Italian tombs, including Michelangelo and Galileo.
Despite her poor attitude at times, Blake has gotten quite good at taking family photos!
Our last day in Florence entailed departing our Airbnb, lugging our bags to the train station, hopping on another train to the airport, and flying back to Cairo. It was quite the haul but we made it!
At the airport, Kyle and I took turns getting snacks, grabbing a coffee, and making sure water bottles were filled for the flight. In a funny turn of events, we both came back with the exact same snack.
The kids were thrilled at the prospect of eating 24 cookies on a 3-hour flight. All in all, it was a wonderful vacay and we can’t wait to get back to Europe! Cairo, here we come!
