Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - My 1st Trip Report-Rome/Florence

Hi All-

I'm new to this trip report stuff, but I've bothered enough people on this site and had some requests to "post back" once I got home. So, below is my Preface and Part I of my one-week trip to Italy, splitting the time between Rome and Florence. I didn't realize I had so much to say until I sat down at the computer, so I hope that you are not bored or annoyed by the length of it. I need some time to work on the Florence half, so I'll post back within a couple of days to finish it off.. in the meantime, I just wanted to get the first half up. Dates were 2/3-2/10.

Italy Trip Report

Preface

I’ve arranged to meet my friend (DF?) who’s originally from London and now lives in Switzerland in Rome for our first ever holiday together. I’m a 31F (about to turn 32) and he’s 30. Some background: we used to work together when he was interning in NY (where I am from). We stayed in touch and whenever he’d come to the USA to visit he’d stay with me so at least I was used to sharing space with him, although 7 ½ days is a bit of a test although I will say right off the bat I think we did incredibly well :)

We had about 5 weeks of planning this trip, so it was kind of done in a rush. We wanted to see as much as we could, but we knew we only had a week, so we chose Rome & Florence because of the proximity of the two cities-we wouldn’t be wasting a whole day on a train. We didn’t want to be bothered with a car, so the fact that we had 2 cities in which we could explore by foot was a big help. Finally, we knew that we were going during the “off” season, but with both our jobs it’s difficult to get away so we jumped at the chance to finally make this happen (after 6 years of him inviting me to Europe!)

I’d been diligently preparing to pack for the past couple of weeks, asking peoples’ advice on the boards which was very helpful (vacu-seal bags anyone?!!!) I wish that I could get this font to write in pink or purple in some parts since I have more “chick tips” then I know what to do with. So guys, if I start to bore you, just skip down to the next paragraph :(

Back to the packing. I made it on with one rolling carry-on size (23”) suitcase and a small backpack. I had bought suede Aerosole boots with wedge heels which I wore on with jeans, a turtleneck and an Anne Klein water-resistant coat with a hood. I wish the coat was a bit thicker but I knew we were expecting rain and I didn’t want to get my wool/cashmere coat soaked. I packed a sweater set, another turtleneck, a wrap sweater, couple of t-shirts, and another v-neck sweater, one other pair of jeans and a wrap dress. One tip from other travelers that was useful was to buy cheap undies from Target and then chuck them after using them - beats doing the extra laundry. Of course I ran out of clothes but I did my best!

I packed a flatiron and no hair dryer as I thought the hotels would be equipped with them from what it had said on the web sites. I brought one pair of walking shoes (Keens) that were clunky, cute sneaker-looking and black canvas. DF had told me that he had electricity converters that worked when he visited the USA from Europe, so he assumed that they would work there. WRONG-apparently my little flatiron requires quite a bit of voltage. Chick Tip: check the electric wattage, currents or whatever the heck you’re supposed to check on the appliances you’re bringing over there. My poor flatiron survived two 3-minute uses the entire time before it started smoking! Thank goodness it wasn’t permanently damaged.

One thing that we didn’t “pack” was a daily itinerary. I know that this is going to drive some of you through the roof, but we didn’t want to plan “too much”. Or I should say that my DF didn’t want to plan too much. So – no tours, nothing booked until we got over there. Hey it was what it was, and I didn’t want to fight before I was even on the plane so I let it go. It was my first trip to Europe and I wanted to enjoy it. We brought phrase books and a couple a couple of travel guides like Lonely Planet and Frommers and we were fine for the most part. I will say this: I was proud of our mutual efforts to stumble through a conversation in Italian. I know none and had no business even trying, but by week’s end, I could order and get myself around a restaurant, clothing store, etc. Just introducing yourself in Italian and trying made some difference. Usually they answered in English anyway but maybe they appreciated our efforts. I’ll never know.

On February 2, I showed up for my overnight flight to Rome from JFK. I had been having some anxiety about getting both the bags on the plane as I didn’t want to have to check them, but I packed to the absolute best of my ability and then just decided that whatever was going to happen was going to happen. I didn’t use the expander zipper on either of my bags, so that helped me later on when I went shopping. I was a bit worried that my backpack, which I was using as my personal item, would be too big but thankfully they didn’t say anything. I got to hang out in the Alitalia lounge courtesy of a friend of my Dad’s who set me up (nice surprise before takeoff!) and I watched the planes take off and land in the pouring rain, wondering if I’d be delayed.

Thankfully we were on time, as DF was going to have arrived about 2 hours earlier then me and I didn’t want him having to wait any longer than necessary. I was seated in the bulkhead next to a woman with an 18 month old baby. The plane was only about half full but unfortunately my plan to move my seat after takeoff fell short as I was hoping to find a row to spread out and crash. Everyone had already done that, so I was stuck where I was. The girl was cool though, and her baby didn’t really make much of a fuss at all. I ended up having to help her though as the baby would freak out if she weren’t on someone’s lap so JUST when I had taken my half Ambien, the kid started making a fuss and the mother was getting all overheated having the kid on her lap for a few hours so I let the baby sit with me for about an hour or so until we got her back to sleep. I was glad to help (the mother’s husband was a chef in our Army over in Italy and was about to be deployed for his 3rd trip to Iraq). Least I could do was sacrifice a few hours sleep considering all that her husband is sacrificing for our country.

Alitalia tip: Bring your own food!!! I had some rice cakes and protein bars, but man I would have loved an actual meal. I didn’t think much of it because I really thought I would try and sleep for most of the flight but that didn’t happen. The food on the plane was some of the worst I’ve ever had, so take heed – bring sandwiches, or whatever you have to bring to keep yourself fed for the flight!

I looked out the window and watched us take off. On my way to Italy! I couldn’t believe I was finally going to see Europe! Thank goodness I was happy and in a good mood, because we had no TV and no reception through the headsets for music. I used my IPod very little because I was talking to the girl a lot and didn’t want to burn up the battery for the trip home (I have a Shuffle and the only way you charge it is in the computer). So, I had to use my excitement for the trip to entertain me for most of the flight. And away we go…

Rome-Day 1 – 2/3/07

It was a rough flight, given the weather and the fact that I had was babysitting half the time, so my DF had to forgive me when I landed and could barely see straight. We had Rome Cabs pick us up but it wasn’t Stefano unfortunately. The guy spoke to us about the sites when we got into the city (and when we prompted him) but he was very difficult to understand as he was mumbling on top of his accent. Being as tired as I was, I gave up and let my DF have the conversation with him. DF wasn’t all that bright-eyed and bushy tailed either as he’d been out drinking with the boys the night before and had to catch a 5 a.m. bus to his airport in Lugano. Well one of us could have had some rest but I suppose it wasn’t meant to be.

We arrived at our hotel, the Eurostars International Palace on the Via Nazionale. I’d booked it before I found the Trip Advisor reviews so I was a little anxious about what we’d find. The lobby was a bit overdone, but once we got to the room I was pleasantly surprised to find the one thing I didn’t expect – space! Lots of it! We had a very modern room and bathroom, with a halfway decent blow dryer. The beds pretty hard, which was what the other travelers had warned about but in light of the fact that the room was pretty good, I took it with a grain of salt. The TV didn’t get much reception for anything English; CNN signal came and went every 30 seconds or so. I never watch TV while I’m away, but because we didn’t have the internet, I found I wanted to watch the news in order to keep up on what was going on in the States.

We went for our first walk in Rome (!) It was nearly 60 degrees and sunny. We were lucky with the weather for the first few days. We walked up the via Nazionale to Piazza del a Republica where we had cheeseburgers (don’t ask-I was deliriously tired) in an outdoor looking diner type place and our first cappuccino of the trip. I didn’t particularly care for them (what a surprise) but I was starving and would have eaten nearly anything at that point.

After lunch we walked up the via Septembre, past San Carlo Quattro Fountain which was very pretty and we hadn’t heard about it through any of the tour books. While walking up the via de Quirinale we saw a peek of a garden in a castle with guards standing at the entrance. It looked lovely, but we could see right away that we were unable to enter. I liked the via de Quirinale – we saw a park on one side that looked like it would be lovely once the flowers came into bloom.

We banked right on a whim and saw the Trevi Fountain – our first “site”! I could see why people would want to come here but looking at the stores around (Benetton, anyone?) and all of the little stands, it sort of reminded me of Rockefeller Center in a way. I didn’t have my camera on me yet, so DF took a couple of pics with his cell phone which came out quite nice. Over to the via del Corso where I bought some knockoff Armani sunglasses for about 10 Euro. They were cute and did the trick – I didn’t want to bring my good ones since I’m klutzy with my shades and try to only wear them in the car.

We ran into the Piazza Colona, I’ll have to research the story behind it one of these days to see what all of the art sculpted into the tower means. We then found our way over to the Pantheon and tried to go in when I was promptly assaulted by a man wearing a gladiator suit of all things (no, I’m not joking). I would like you all to picture the most exhausted person you’ve ever seen trying to take in her first sights of Rome and getting grabbed by a man wearing a gladiator suit to have a mock sword fight with me in hopes of getting us to take a picture with him. It was, in a word, bizarre! No he didn’t try to steal anything from me (I would have knocked his ass out), he just wanted to take a couple of pictures with us –and then tried to charge us 5 Euros!! DF told him where to go and how to do it in his haughty British accent (hee) and I think he gave this clown one Euro.

Into the Pantheon we went, and I have to say, it was kind of annoying because it was the one place where we actually encountered a crowd. We were lucky for most of the trip in having the cities to ourselves, but in the Pantheon there must have been 5 tour groups going at once, and so we were unable to get up close to more than one statue before we gave up and left.

Out we went to the Piazza Navona, which I think I will refer to as one of my favorite spots in the trip. Finally, here we were in an outdoor café, drinking a nice bottle of wine and eating some delicious antipasti. We ate at La Dolce Vita and let me say that the beautiful weather really helped right then. As you all know, it’s been freezing in NY and just being outside in the nice weather really helped me adjust to being in such a foreign place. They brought out some heaters when the sun started to go down, so that helped because it got cold quickly once the sun went in every day. Afterward, we walked around a bit and had a look at all of the artists. I wanted to buy one of the pictures of a ballerina but thought I was going to come back and never did :(

On the way back to the hotel, we went to the Vittorio Emanuel and passed some bars. I think we probably stopped into one for a beer – lots of pubs around, let me tell you – DF felt right at home! For dinner, the concierge recommended Hostaria Vineria which was around the corner from the hotel. We wanted something close and casual, given how exhausted we were and it absolutely hit the spot. We had our first pasta of the trip which was a rigatoni dish with chicken, marinara sauce and a touch of basil – so simple and SO good. DF had spaghetti ragu and we went through nearly two bottles of a nice Sangiovese blend (we came upon a lot of these). Back to the hotel and off to bed, with visions of Tuscan wine dancing in our heads…

Rome – Day 2

Eurostars tip: it’s more likely than not that your room rate will not include breakfast, as ours did from Hotels.com. This was fine with us as I’ve heard nothing good about their breakfasts anyway. Nevertheless, breakfast would become a moot point as we did not once have breakfast the entire week. This made for a somewhat cranky me, because when I want breakfast, I want it. Only thing was, sleep won out every time. I managed to get nearly no sleep the first couple of days over the course of the night, falling asleep only in the wee hours of the morning. So getting out of bed before 10:30 or 11 a.m. never seemed to happen.

Back to breakfast: down via Nazionale we headed to Café via Cordonarte where we had tea and spinach frittatas. The place was adorable and it was the best excuse for breakfast I’d have all week, but the waiter was pretty standoffish (we found that to be the case in most places, unfortunately). So if you don’t care about the service, I’d recommend that to be your stop in the morning before you get going to see the sites.

We went straight down the via Emanuel to Pontesant Angelo Bridge over the Tiber River. (If I spell anything wrong in this trip report, please forgive me as most of these notes came from me scribbling in a diary and I’m not able to read all of my own handwriting). Sorry – Vatican City… WOW. Let me go back to my earlier note about being there in the off-season: maybe it had something to do with the fact that we did most of our site-seeing in the afternoons, but we had the place nearly to ourselves!!! My family has done the guided tour thing for a week and still had to wait on line to get into the Vatican – we walked right in! We saw the Tombs of the Popes first and toured the inside which gave me quite the chills, but that was nothing compared to being inside the actual church. I was like one walking goosebump the entire time. Even my DF, who is not at all religious, was in awe. I couldn’t even imagine trying to be in there with hordes of tourists, it was so nice to be able to go right up to whatever statue we wanted to and take a look. While we did take plenty of pictures as there were some beautiful shots of rays of light streaming into the windows, I more or less didn’t want to photograph the statues. I don’t know what it is, but something about it just seemed kind of wrong to me. I desperately wanted to get some holy water, but we had 90 minutes to kill before they’d let me in the back to ask for it.

What do you do with 90 minutes – climb to the top of St. Peter’s, of course! Roughly 570 steps – all stone, very windy, very narrow, somewhat claustrophobic at times – did I mention stone – steps. In a word, OUCH. I don’t know if it was my Keens not doing the job but unfortunately I was to effectively shred my calves doing that hike up! The views were stunning and I was so glad we made it up. DF and I are in pretty good shape, and the walk up was no big deal, which is why I was surprised I hurt myself the way that I did. It was a cool experience, one of the highlights of the trip, yet it really affected me as I was hobbling for the next six days. Oh well, the hazards of site-seeing, I suppose.

We left Vatican City and found what was to be termed my “happy road”: the via de Governo Vecchio. If you’re into fashion as I am, this road was inspiring. It was out of the way and housed boutiques owned by the designers themselves (none to be found of course, as they were all in NY for Fashion Week.) I’m not alone in finding the Italian women impeccable without effort at all times, even when they are casual. It was great to see these fashions up close and examine the painstaking care taken in every detail. Such a departure from the same old, same old back home in the malls.

Let me take this opportunity to say the one thing that I cannot stress enough about my DF – he is a SAINT when it came to me wanting to shop. For the life of me I can’t understand why he didn’t take me up on my offers to go do something else while I shopped, but he was content to just hang outside in the alley with his IPod and phone and watch the people walk by. Bless this boy, I tell you. I did my best not to take advantage of the situation of course, but he was happy seeing me bop around and do my thing.

Of course I had to reciprocate and that meant stopping in quite a few pubs throughout our trip. One of them was the Abbey where we had salads, fish & chips and watched rugby. It really was a fun scene in there, but we didn’t want to get too comfortable or we would have been there all night, so we kept on moving cut through the Piazza Navona to see the Pantheon after dark. Awesome, I tell you – I can see why everyone kept insisting that was the time to see it. We stopped in a few shops on the via Del Corso to pick up a couple more gifts with a plan to grab one drink on the way back to the hotel.

Well, we turned right onto Vittorio Emanuel and found Scholars, which was a bar that some American kids in Abbey had told us they’d be heading to that night to watch the Super Bowl – yeah baby, my first time out of the country for a Super Bowl! DF has his Master’s in Sports Science, so he can talk about any sport and know every detail of it. Of course we were watching the Super Bowl! Oh wait, one problem – we’re oh, six hours ahead, so it wasn’t starting until 12:30 a.m….ugh.

Back to that one drink. At Scholars. The place with the American kids watching the Super Bowl. We walked in at around 7:30 p.m. and yes folks – left SIX hours later! There are apparently 3 universities in Rome that house American students (I was accepted to one of them back in my college days but never went-long story). So of course it was our duty to bond with the students, buy them rounds and rounds of drinks and nachos and next thing you know, the Super Bowl had started and here we are will all of these kids going nuts for Chicago (and a few for Indy), but mostly Chicago. Let that include the two guys who came in dressed like the Blues Brothers. Priceless. I lasted until halftime and then about passed out in the bar, so I had to drag the DF out of there.

Rome – Day 3

Check it out, we took the Metro! With my calves full-on blown out from the hike up to the top of St. Peter’s, we decided to try to pace ourselves a bit and took the Metro’s A line to the Spanish Steps. We found parts of it somewhat boarded up and I guess I was hoping for more. We were able to walk right up and down them, but the views up there weren’t as spectacular as I was hoping for. Again though, not crowded! We had an early lunch (was hoping for breakfast, but they refused to serve it) right at noon at a little café adjacent to the Steps. We could see a bride and groom having their picture taken on the Steps through the cafe window, which was cute but I thought it was odd as it was a Monday, after all. Afterward, we walked the via Condotti where everyone talks about going for the shops. Let me tell you something folks, and maybe it’s just me that’s jaded because I’m from New York, but if you’ve been to Madison Avenue/Miracle Mile/Rodeo Drive then you’ve been to via Condotti! I took a walk through one store – Max Mara – and the girls didn’t even acknowledge my presence. So great, now I’m invisible. Nice job ladies, you just lost a sale.

We walked Piazza del Poppolo which was a nice square in front of an Egyptian base and ran around looking for the 110 bus which we couldn’t find. Instead, we hopped back on the Metro and took it 3 stops back to the Vatican. On the Metro was where I had my first of only a couple of gypsy sightings, and DF gave one a small tip in order to avoid some type of “gypsy curse”. I’d have been happy telling her where to go, but DF gave into the pressure!

So we ended up behind the Sistine Chapel which was of course, closed so we got screwed. Three different travel guides gave three different times as to when it would be open so it was quite disappointing. On the bright side though, we had our first gelato! We would only have one other one after that as it was a bit chilly and having gelato didn’t seem to be as appealing as a hot cappuccino.

We wrapped around the Vatican and hopped on the 110 bus which we finally found. It took us all over – up the Piazza Cavor by the Supreme Court, by the Tiber River to Piazza del Papolo - Musea de Augustus, one of the places we had not been to already. We jumped off at Piazza del Republica to have some coffee and took a practice run through the Termini as we were taking the train the next day to Florence. That seemed straightforward enough, so we jumped back on the 110 and saw the Colosseo next, which was quite impressive from the outside but we didn’t feel a big need to go inside and explore. We had some incredible views of it from the second deck of the bus.

We drove by Circo Massimo where they used to have horse races, and then passed some more old ruins (there sure were a lot of those around!) At Campo di Fiore we jumped off to do some shopping (!) and headed down the Via del Governo Vecchio (my Happy Road). It reminded me of a cooler Soho, with artistry in the clothes unparalleled. Although I probably mentioned that already. I splurged on my first purchase, a beautiful skirt from Martino Midali which was a black and white hand knit skirt, nearly ankle length with a scalloped bottom. A couple of stores down, I bought a black wide knit scarf from C’est Vrai which worked well when I wore the skirt a few nights later with a black turtleneck and high black boots. DF busied himself in the alley studying his phrase book and watching more than one Vespa rider nearly mow down some unassuming patrons. Fun!

We walked up the Vittorio Emanuel and came upon a café next to the Venetian Palace where we stopped for some wine and pizza. Our waitress, Felicia, was awesome! She loved our attempts at Italian (especially DF’s) and got a kick out of correcting our pronunciation. She taught me how to say “napkin” in Italian (and I still can’t say it right) and cracked up when DF tried to get her to ensure that our pizza with prosciutto would in fact, have cheese and sauce on it. Yes folks, that sound you hear is me banging my head against my desk even thinking back to it. But she was a great sport and we loved her to death.

Alright, I'm off to bed, will post back soon :)

Florence – Day 1

After checking out of the Eurostars we had decided that it wasn’t all that long a walk to the train station so we decided to forego the cab and hike it over there. BIG mistake, which led to one of the few times that DF and I snipped at each other. I had by that time rearranged some of the contents of my bags due to my new purchases and now the knapsack was heavier than it was before. Needless to say, I was dragging way behind DF and he was annoyed that I wasn’t keeping up. It wasn’t until later that he actually felt how heavy my backpack was, and felt the knots in my calves that he was sorry for busting ahead of me like that. Like seriously guy, get a grip – I’m not one to complain, so when I’m behind you by 20 yards gritting my teeth, stop and give me some love! It was all good though, we talked about it and believe me, it didn’t happen again. And we took cabs when we had bags :)

The ride on TreneItalia was not all that exciting. DF was looking forward to catching up on his paper-reading, but his paper was already a day old. If you’ve done Amtrak, you’ve done TreneItalia. Unfortunately it was getting cloudy so there wasn't all that much to see. We cabbed it (ahem) to the Hotel Calzaiuoli, right on Via dei Calzaiuoli (hereby known as Hotel C). It was RIGHT ON the Via dei Calzaiuoli, just a few blocks from the Duomo. Great, great location. The room was small, and like others before me, my request for a quiet room had not really been heeded. Or maybe they thought it was quiet because it wasn’t right up against the Breakfast Room. Either way, fun views of the world going by, and hanging out of my window watching the street below made for some good entertainment but all I can say is thank goodness we were there when it was too chilly to have the windows open for too long or the noise would have really annoyed us. As it was, even through the double-paned glass I could hear the locals in the middle of the night walking around screaming and singing which I thought was strange as it was mid-week, but they were probably bartenders getting off their shifts or something.

Another word to the wise: I travel quite frequently for work and am completely happy to rely upon the concierge for any research I’m not able to do myself on places to eat, drink, etc. Well I had done plenty of research (about 8 pages worth actually, which I have typed up in another document) about all of those things but as it began to rain in Florence and never really stopped, we weren’t so motivated to go traipsing around town just to find someplace to eat. So we were at the mercy of the concierge at times in Florence, and that was definitely a hit or miss. I know it wouldn’t have been the same way had the weather been nicer, but I’d make relying on the concierge for info as my Plan “C” next time, instead of my Plan “B”.

We had settled in and while I was excited about it being so sunny out (we had anticipated rain by this point in the trip), I was flat-out exhausted. DF actually made me lay down with him on the bed and do nothing but watch TV for an hour so that I could get a little rest. While I was so frustrated at not being outside, I was also nearly passed out at that point so I guess it made sense to just STOP for once. One thing I’ve learned in all of my travels is that more than ever, you have to listen to your body or you’re going to, without a doubt, get sick. So I did what I had to do and put the brakes on for an hour. Of course 50 minutes in, I was twitching with restlessness and had to leave!

Finally we made it out and roamed around. We did what we thought would be a preliminary tour of the Duomo (we never made it back inside, sadly) but we got some beautiful pictures and had a nice time inside. Hungry, we stopped around the corner of our hotel at the Castello de Verrazzano which was a wine bar, for some wine, cheese and fresh meats. It was named after the explorer who had found the North Bay in New York, who the bridge is named after and who also had a winery in Tuscany! Holy trivia! A man named Febrize was our waiter and if you stop in there please give him my best. He was fabulous. It was our first of only a couple of bonding experiences with the restaurateurs which was disappointing because I thought that type of thing would happen more regularly. We had a blast, and told him that we would be returning.

Out the door after our snack, and over to the river and the Ponte Vecchio Bridge where we took a few pictures and saw our last bit of sunlight of the trip. I think we knew it then, too which made it kind of depressing. We wandered around the markets on both sides of the bride, but the vendors were incredibly annoying. I knew the Italian phrases to tell them that I was just looking, but they insisted on following DF and I around and it really put me in the defensive mode as I had no idea what these people were up to. They were just shady, so I hung onto my purse tightly.

On our way out, we stopped at the Piazza del a Republica in a pretty, upscale hotel we found that had a bar facing the Piazza. We were in the mood for champagne, and each had a glass which improved my mood just a tad. I don’t remember the name of the hotel, but it was sort of a very “ladies who lunch” type place. Either way, it did the trick.

When we went back to the hotel, we asked the concierge for a recommendation at an authentic Tuscan style place nearby (my legs were dead tired, and I just had no idea what the cab situation would be like). He pulled out a business card for Buca S. Giovanni, which was right in the Piazza diagonally across from the hotel and adjacent to the Duomo.

This place was CUTE. It was downstairs and had been there since the 1800’s apparently. The one thing was that our table was so wobbly and for some reason my DF decided to fix it himself instead of having the waiter do it, so he kept stuffing bread under the leg of the table. I wasn’t much paying attention until I realized that by the end of dinner he had stuffed nearly a whole basked under that leg! Don’t ask. Just - don’t ask.

Gianni, who was the host/owner, took excellent care of us and we all became friends which was fun. DF and I split a rigatoni bolognese which was SO good as an appetizer. DF had asked for prawns as his entrée but was told they were out, so in what little Italian he knew, he just went along with what the waiter suggested. I asked him how he could just do that, and not know what was going to show up on his plate, but he just shrugged and said he’d gotten used to it happening as it seems to happen all the time when he travels to foreign countries. I don’t eat fish, so I was just on the edge of my seat waiting to see what would turn up for him. Five minutes later, the waiter walks by with something big in his hand and asks DF if he’d approve it for his meal. I about flew out of my chair – the waiter was carrying a LIVE lobster! This thing was moving and wriggling and boy did it look PISSED. DF could barely look at me – as it turns out, he’s only eaten lobster maybe once in his life, and he knew what he was in for. Sure enough, when our entrees turned up, he kept asking me which way I thought he should crack the lobster. How the hell should I know?? I don’t eat this, but nevertheless, I ended up wearing some of it! Not to be mean, but just to watch that struggle was enough that I could barely stop laughing all night.

The 1996 Brunello de Mantolcino we had definitely contributed to my giddiness, as did a 100% Sangiovese that Gianni gave me from a bottle he was drinking, then a glass of Rosso de Mantolcino, and then the Muscato. Gianni had sat down with us while we were eating dessert and we just all talked and talked, about life, love and the pursuit of la dolce vita.. It was such the quintessential Italian dining experience and I thought every night would be like that but most other restaurateurs didn’t care enough to sit and talk to us like he did. He spoke English fluently, used to be a professional soccer player and now he owns one of the most famed restaurants in Florence. It was a blast hanging out with him, and the night went pretty late. I had to drag the DF out of there before he had one more Nocello – ugh. Then we went back to the hotel and he managed a beer from the minibar before he passed out. Classic.

***

Chick Tip: I must have done too much research online about people getting their stuff stolen, because even though I had a money belt, I NEVER wore it. I just had a small leather bag tucked under my arm with the zipper in front so I knew where it was at all times. I actually kept the money belt in my suitcase and used it to file my receipts to make life easier when I got to customs. So, Tip #1 here is just don't wear a backpack while walking around and any small purse should do. Tip #2 is if you are a shopper, to write down all of your purchases ON your receipts - the receipts in Italy don't really outline what you've bought and if you're like me and want to keep track of all that stuff it can get very confusing-what was a store, what was a bar, etc. So write down on the receipt if it was shoes, a shawl, a snack, etc. This will help you also when you get home and want to double-check your credit card charges.