Panic.
After passing out in the nice hotel room, my roomies and I had a late start on the one morning we actually had to leave early. Due to Angela Merkel’s visit, many main roads were going to be closed soon, so Matteo wanted to get an early start. We threw our luggage together and ran to breakfast. While I entered breakfast with our room key, when we went to grab our luggage it was gone.
While everyone was boarding the bus we were panicking at the front desk trying to get a replacement key. We literally ran back to our room. I thought I had packed pretty thoroughly before breakfast so I ran out with what I thought was everything important.
Nope.
I left behind in Assissi my camera battery, in it’s charger, connected by my adapter to the wall. And my nice rain coat. They are just things, and of course replaceable, but I was bummed none the less.
We stopped at an overlook our tour guide had recommended where you could see what felt like all of Florence. It was awesome. We all took many Insta-worthy photos.
We arrived in Florence and had a short amount of break time before our walking tour.
I had discovered the evening before that my ankle was quite swollen, so we searched for a pharmacy to buy some elastic bandage. Turns out, the places with a green medical cross that are labeled as pharmacies really only sell makeup, face creams, sunscreen, and things like that so we headed into a grocery store to pick up some water, luckily finding some elastic bandage as well.
Next, we searched for a cafe to get our much-needed caffeine fix. We found this place on a side-street. Kristina and I ordered espresso and Kayla opted for an Americano. We settled in to a little table in their outdoor seating and the woman who took our order brought out our coffee along with a plate of adorable little cookies! We loved this place. Not only did we get free cookies, but the bathroom there was SO CLEAN. After refueling and wrapping up my ankle, we headed back to the piazza for our walking tour.
Onto another walking tour! While I really valued all the historical info we got on these tours, my feet were majorly suffering. I learned on this trip that I need to invest in some supportive shoes.
Anyway, the highlight of the walking tour was seeing the Duomo. I loved the exterior of this building with the pinks and greens.
Next, we toured the Galleria dell’Accademia aka the Gallery of the Academy of Florence. This was where we got to see THE DAVID (along with quite a few other piece of Michelangelo’s).
We ended the day with a delicious meal at a pizzeria. It was DELICIOUS, by far the best pizza I had in Italy. Again, it was a Matteo recommendation. Again, we were so lucky to have him! My phone died, or I would have had a picture.
That evening, I did some laundry with my roomies Kayla and Kristina. Then, a group of us headed out with Matteo to apparently the number one night club in Florence: The Space Discoteque.
Let me tell you. It was not worth the $16 cover charge. I’d say the highlight of the night was seeing Matteo stand in the middle of the dance floor, softly mouthing the words to Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You”. I also really enjoyed chatting with Emma, Lindsay, Taylor, and Ally at a Dinsey-park-esque table shaped like a seashell.
The next day was our only full free day on the trip, and it was our second day in Florence. So I went to bed looking forward to a day of exploration.