Girls Weekend - Italy - Day 2

The best part about this little trip was that we were never in a hurry to do anything. We only planned a few things to do, and the rest of the time we just relaxed.

On our first morning in Florence, I couldn't help but wake up early. It was probably around 7am, and I just played on my phone until the others woke up. We threw on our swim suits and coverups, and went down for poolside breakfast. There was a wide variety of food, with made to order eggs and breakfast meats available. My favorite was the blood orange juice, but everything I tried was delicious.

When we'd finished eating, we lounged by the pool, and eventually became brave enough to get in. The weather was so nice and warm, but the pool was cold! We stayed in for a bit before going upstairs to shower and change for the day (we did have 4 grown women in a room with one bath).

The whole resort was beautiful and serene

We had a light lunch at the hotel before we went to explore a bit of the city.

I took these pictures with my phone. The little guy let me get so close!

Bottle of prosecco with our food

We called for a taxi, and just asked him to drop us off near the cathedral.

These 3 pictures are from a courtyard we passed through

I loved the feel of the city, and maybe a lot of that was because I felt like a kid on Spring Break.

After a few quick turns, we found the Cattedrale de Santa Maria del Fiore. I'll apologize for the onslaught of pictures here, but this was the most impressive cathedral I've seen yet. I loved walking around and studying the detail. We all spent a long time looking and taking photos, and we didn't even make it all the way around the outside. We weren't able to go inside (most of us were wearing sleeveless tops), but I'd love to go back and have a peek.

Our first glimpse

Baptistry of Saint John

Photos do not do it justice.

We did a bit of shopping in the square, and I found my piece of art souvenir. In fact, we all bought pieces from the same vendor. We asked where we should have dinner, and he pointed us toward a place just round the corner. We sat outside and had a nice leisurely meal.

The pasta and salad were great, and the location couldn't be beat.

We had all started to notice the huge number of American accents we'd been hearing. It seemed that we heard just as many Americans as Italians talking, which seemed unusual to me. At dinner, a couple of young American women sat at a nearby table, and actually asked the diner at another table - a complete stranger - if they could try her food! ("That looks really good, can I have a bite?") Thankfully, that was a one time occurrence.

Anyway, though we were stuffed after dinner, we had to try some gelato. We found a little place, and the gelato was okay, but we had the experience. Then we popped into a cafe for a coffee, and found a taxi to take us back to the resort.

We could have gone out to a club or something, but didn't feel like we had to prove anything. And it was actually nice to have an early night. By this time, I must have started to relax, because I was able to actually sleep in a little!