Florence - Shopping, Art & Gelato! | A Little Further North

We had lots planned for our only full day in Florence, so we were up early. We had to be at the Uffizi by 9.15 a.m.

We had breakfast at a cafe down the street from our B&B. The B&B itself doesn't actually serve breakfast, they give you vouchers for a cafe down the road. Which I actually preferred, it's nice sitting in a cafe amongst local people, instead of being surrounded by tourists in your hotel.

The Uffizi gallery is one of the oldest and most famous museums in the world. It's full of amazing paintings by Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. It's also really busy, so we booked tickets ahead of time to try and beat the lines.

We arrived at about 9.15 a.m., after getting insanely lost because I forgot Bradley is not great at reading maps and let him lead the way... so we arrived just on time to pick up our tickets. There was already a huge line outside for people wanting to buy tickets, so I'm glad we booked. We got our tickets and skipped straight through another door, beating about 150 people waiting. It was awesome. Unfortunately you can't take any photos inside the Uffizi, but I managed to sneak a couple...

We were at the Uffizi Gallery for about two hours. We then wandered over to the Basilica of Santa Croce to have a look at the Leather School that's behind it. The Leather School in actually in a Monastery, and is hidden away from the public. You really have to know to look for it, so it was lovely and quiet when we were wandering round. We didn't buy anything, but they had some amazing handbags.

Basilica of Santa Croce

We had the best Gelato in our entire time in Italy at Vivoli. It looks a bit dodgy from the outside, but their Banana Gelato was amazing!

After stopping for a Gelato break, we headed back towards the San Lorenzo leather markets to have a look there. Florence has the most amazing markets, full of handbags, belts and wallets. It's hard to know how good the quality is, but you can definitely tell that some are much better than others, just by how the stalls are displayed.

I'm not great at haggling, but I did manage to get a blue leather belt for half the advertised price and an orange leather handbag for 20 euros less than advertised... so not too bad.

San Lorenzo Leather Markets

We were pretty exhausted after all the walking around and shopping, so went back to the B&B to relax and refresh ourselves, also to have some more of the red wine we brought from Montepulciano. We sat on the balcony and watched the people go past, it was so relaxing, it almost felt like we were living there instead of just visiting!

We dragged ourselves away from the B&B and the wine, to go do some more sightseeing. The Basilica of Santa Maria Novella was only about two minutes away from the B&B. Santa Maria Novella was actually the first Basilica in Florence, and is right across from the tran station, which is also called Santa Maria Novella.

We went back to the Piazza del Duomo, in the hopes of being able to go up the Duomo if the lines weren't too long. They were still really long, we would have had to wait at least an hour or two in the hot sun. We lined up to go inside the Basilica, which had a long line but moved really quickly. It was then I realised I was wearing short shorts, so wouldn't be able to enter. I had to run over to a market stall to buy a scarf to wrap around my waist. Florence has some amazing scarves and pashminas for less than 5 euros each.

The interior of the Basilica is just beautiful, there are amazing paintings and stained glass everywhere. It was quite dark, so it was hard to take good photos. It's really really huge, there was heaps of people inside but it never felt crowded.

Inside the roof of the Duomo

After our tour of the Basilica, we decided to climb the Campanile. There's over 400 stairs up to the top, and it's very narrow inside, but I think it was much less claustrophobic than the Duomo would have been. Plus we got great views of the Duomo up close which was amazing. The Campanile gives you views across all of Florence and there are three different levels. It was really windy up the top and I was stupidly wearing a skirt, which I had to grip pretty hard to keep from flying up!

Happy to be on our way back down

Fighting to keep my skirt down!

Doors of the Baptistry

Ponte Vecchio again

It was really windy on the Ponte Vecchio

We slowly wandered through the city and made our way back to the Piazzale Michelangelo. We stopped and grabbed some snacks on the way up, and had a picnic of cheese and prosciutto while watching the sun set. It was an awesome end to our last day in Florence.