Byer Family: Florence (Day 5)

Day 5... we woke up at the hotel and ate some breakfast. It definitely did not compare to our hotel breakfast in Rome.

Once finished with breakfast, we walked to Ponte Vecchio, Florence's iconic bridge. The bridge is entirely filled with jewelers on either side of the street. We did a little window "shopping" - looking while walking the bridge. We were close to the far side of the bridge when all of a sudden a man sprinted out of one of the jewelry shops. We witnessed a burglary! The male owner tried to chase the man down, the woman cashier screamed after the robber, and many people tried to grab the man to no avail! It was actually quite frightening. He dropped some of the jewelry, and many people picked it up and brought it back to the owner. The Italian police showed up and cruised the area for quite some time, looking for the burglar.

Once we left the excitement on the bridge, we strolled our way past Palazzo Pitti and Piazza de Pitti, a vast palace and piazza to see the Giardino di Boboli, the palace's expansive gardens. We peeked in on the gardens but chose not to purchase entrance tickets.

Once viewing the gardens from afar, we walked up the hill to Piazzale Michelangelo, trekking our way up the hill to view the panoramic landscape of Florence. WOW! What a gorgeous view! We trekked further up the hill to Chiesa di San Miniato al Monte (a church) to see another gorgeous view of Florence below. We stayed on the far side of the river and ate lunch at an outdoor restaurant. Once lunch was finished, we had to get some gelato for dessert. We went to La Carraia, which came HIGHLY recommended for a reason. We ate some of the best gelato of the trip here.

We headed back to the hotel late afternoon for a short nap before heading back to Piazza Santa Maria Novella (our favorite) to share a pre-dinner bottle of wine. Once finished with our wine, we decided to stay at the restaurant for some dinner and enjoy some more wine of course.