Viva Italia Part 3 of 5 - Firenze

Florence, or Firenze in Italian is possibly my favorite stop of all.

Another train ride, another stop. But from what the guide books say Firenze could easily be one of the busier hubs you'd find in Italy just because there is so much to see.

We went to the Duomo (though I still like the one in Milan the best), museums, had a bit of a walk around and went shopping. Florence had a very different vibe from Milan, Venice, and  Rome too as we will soon find out. It's so interesting how one country can have so many cultural subsets and vibe even if they spoke the same language and ate the same food. In the Philippines you can go from one province to the next and chances are, they can have a different dialect, different food, but overall the scenery would still look the same. This wasn't the case for Italy though.

Il Porcellino

I go on and on about this, but you might wonder -- how different is different really? Well, standing in a Florentine square you could easily visualize yourself in the middle ages or maybe just a bit after that. When people wore puffy clothes, moved in horse drawn carriages, and when it was trendy to speak in prose. But then if you blink once or twice, you'd realize that yes, the buildings are old, but everything in them is mostly modern. There are cobblestone streets and squares and small alleyways but there are electric street lamps and the newest compact cars zipping to and from on them too. I guess I think that of all our stops, Florence pretty much did the best job of preserving their history and culture but managing not to lag behind on the modernization front. They didnt do the whole futurama thing in a big bash either where you'd find an ultra modern sky scraper sitting next to a quaint and really old church. Everything just worked together.

There are so many other things that I loved about Florence, the food, the sights, their famous gelatto, but mostly I think I just fell in love with the romance of Firenze. Where you feel you can be transported to another world only if you'd let yourself.

Tiramisu

Favorite stops in Florence? Probably our lunch at I Matti. I swear I'd try cinghiale (wild boar) at some point and I must say its was pretty good. It actually tasted more like beef than pork. It had a really strong meaty sense to it, and heavy so I am assuming its one of those meats that really needs to stew for a while to be tender but it was rich and yummy. I also had fun at I Matti because the service was good, I loved the feel of the place, and our waiter was really charismatic and didnt mind that we spoke English (whereas some places did). The owner and his daughter were there and she was so cute watching us for a bit, probably curious to know where we were from as we were the only Asians in the packed restaurant. It looked just a tiny bit commercial, but it also had a family feel to it for some reason - so overall I just couldn't stop soaking everything in with my eyes and getting PIC to order everything so I can have a taste of everything too. The funny part here is we didnt know about this place beforehand. We literally just stumbled upon it after our Duomo tour as it was close by. A good find indeed.

@ I Matti

Cinghiale or Wild Boar

Wild Boar Bolognese??

Ponte Vecchio over the River Arno

Another favorite stop was probably our time snooping around the Ponte Vecchio. To some people there probably isn't much to see here, its just another old bridge. But maybe you just have to be there to understand, it just has that romantic, Romeo & Juliet feel to it. Like its a place where clandestine lovers' meetings happen all the time.

Locks of Love

Before you start gagging from all the sappy talk, maybe I am justified in thinking this as just a few minutes into our little walk around the place, we saw the "Locks of Love" by the roadside. The Locks of Love are literally dozens of padlocks locked onto a chain fence safeguarding pedestrians on the sidewalk from cars speeding past. I have absolutely no idea how the trend started but apparently lovers started locking their locks onto the chain to show their unwavering commitment to each other. Now, this is a fairly recent thing and the government has tried removing these locks, but found that the locks are put on faster than they can be removed. So maybe they'll give it a chance and see if couple break-ups decline over time in the region.

Gold Shops on Ponte Vecchio

Onto the Ponte Vecchio itself, were lines of shops selling jewelry, mostly gold. You have to see this place at night as the place positively glowed gold and is especially pretty at dusk. Then move to the spot where you can see how calm and serene the Arno river is and you breathe deep and feel how beautiful Florence is even when its always buzzing with the Italian love for life.

Final verdict? I'll definitely be back. If not for the food or gelatto, there is still so much to see and explore in Florence. This last time I was too busy stopping to smell the flowers and just being plain mushy. So a re-run is definitely in order, but maybe a little less waxing poetic this time around.

http://www.imattidifirenze.com/