Ciao Italy (Part 2)

After we woke up from a very relaxing night's sleep (our bed in the hotel was twice the size of our current bed) we headed down to breakfast and had our best hotel breakfast. There were eggs, bacon, bread, fruit, and all manner of yummy things. They even kindly provided a high chair for Amelia (the only hotel to do that). Have I mentioned how much we liked our hotel?

We headed back to our room for Amelia's morning nap. And I think Matt and I had a morning nap as well, why not? We're on vacation!

After Mia woke up, we checked out of our hotel, hopped back on the bus and went to the train station where we caught a train to Florence.



We happened to be in the same car as an American family (Grandma, Sisters, grandkids...the works) who all cooed and adored Amelia. Which was good, because Amelia would walk around and just go up to one of them and wave, they of course would wave back and gush about how adorable she is. Which she is. We all know that.

The train ride led us to the heart of Florence, we hopped into a taxi which took us to our hotel. At least as close as it could get, we were actually in a 'pedestrian only' section of Florence. And we couldn't have asked for a better location for our hotel! It was literally right on the door step of the Duomo and cathedral.




We checked into our hotel and while not as nice as Pisa, it was certainly decent. The main problem was that our room was upstairs and there was no lift, we had to carry Mia up and down several times a day. No biggie. Also the cot wouldn't fit in the bathroom, so we kept it in our room, but that meant we had to figure out how to get Amelia to sleep in it. She freaked out (really freaked out) when we laid her down in it with the lights off. So we devised a system where we all laid down on our bed and made a little 'cage' for her (Matt on one side, me on the other, and our legs and pillow at an angle at the bottom). Eventually she would fall asleep and we would move her to the cot. Not ideal, but not a huge problem either. The worse thing was we had to have the lights off and everything at 8pm Italian time, a bit too early for us to sleep. We would sneak into the bathroom and read. The things we do to keep our girl asleep!

After we checked into the hotel we set out to explore the surrounding area. We loved Florence. It had lots of tourists, yes, but it didn't feel forced or overly touristy. We mostly just explored our surrounding areas and oohhed and aahhed at the lovely buildings. We came across this great square with a carousel, where we had our first proper Italian meal. It was great, outside dining, with people walking along. So ideal and picturesque.

After a great dinner, we got some gelato and headed back to our hotel for a good night's rest.

Here's some pictures of our day.