A Rare Dame's Inspirations: My 5 Fave Sites: Florence, Italy

We stayed in Florence longer than any other city in Italy just based off of a hunch - we were so lucky! It was a beautiful city full of sights, shopping and really good food. Actually, it's smaller in scale than one would expect - all of these places we could walk to. And of course, like the rest of Italy, very happy people everywhere (except for the 2 homeless women that cussed me out for not giving them money :-o ).

My 5 Fave Sites

1. Florence at Night - View from Piazzale Michelangelo showing the Duomo, Santa Croce, Palazzo Vecchio and a very happy couple.

2. Drunk Sightseeing at night - Pictures taken after bottles and craft of wines then had forgotten by the next day. The next day, I re-saw the same sites again...de ja vu.

Piazza della Signoria

Piazza della Signoria in front of Palazzo Vecchio

From right: Michelangelo's David (replica), Fountain of Neptune (A.D. 1575)

Basilica of Santa Croce (A.D. 1385).

Notice one picture was taken during the day with hoards of other tourists. The night pictures are once we decided to grab a bottle of wine and drink them on the church steps - way better experience.

Ponte Vecchio at night (A.D. 996 originally and rebuilt a couple more times)

Now, I'm making plans the next day to see the same things I saw last night...

Notice the wine glass - it was my 1st of the day so don't judge

3. Ponte Vechhio - Sober and during the day, I realized it was a bunch of expensive jewelry stores. It did, however, originally house all types of merchants selling goods.

View while standing in the middle

4. Street Shots - Local feel of overall happiness

Clockwise from top left: Happy people walking down street, happy people enjoying dinner on Wednesday night, G waiting for me to take pictures of Palazzo Vecchio, our hotel San Gallo

5. Waterfront at Night