Florence

We just love to get up in the morning with no plan other than maybe a museum and start walking. We wander into Trattorias and Ristorantes that locals such as shop owners and people that live say in your apartment building recommend. Have fun!
 
Mike you are so right about DAVID. As the line moved forward, and I turned the corner and beheld that glorious statue, I was so overcome-it truly took my breath away!

I agree.
I studied art history in college (and probably saw photographs of David hundreds of times), and seeing the David statue for real still took my breath away.
Definitely get tickets in advance.

I didn't love the Uffizi, but there is a little restaurant across the Arno, I think called something like "The Laughing Boar" which was great. It's hard to beat the food in Florence. And have some gelato (you won't be sorry for having wasted the calories on it).

We also went to a little town in Tuscany called Rada, which was a really cute hilltop city (and had a fun, local wine enoteca), and drove to Sienna, which was beautiful. Sienna is also where we got cussed out by an older Italian guy for committing a parking faux pas (at least we think he was cussing us out, it was in Italian, and we didn't understand).
The driving maps are not great, even from the rental car companies, so caveat emptor. (we actually spent some time in a town in Tuscany, that we actually thought was another town, but it was still nice).

You will have a great trip! We loved Italy (and we only saw Venice and Florence).
 
we toured the area with Nada's Italy a small group company based in Charlotte and have also done Sicily with her. Friends of ours used her to design a custom sightseeing tour of the Florence area with her guides. Her employees are real gems. Highly recommend seeing if you could work something out with her folks. Just google Nada's Italy if interested.
 
There was a recent article in the New York Times Sunday magazine about the cracks in the David statue's ankles (two weeks ago), and how vulnerable the statue was to earthquakes. I wonder if the recent earthquakes in central Italy have encouraged the Italian government to install the earthquake base on the statue.(which the article stated was a problem of delays). It would be a global shame if the statue was allowed to fall.
 
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