Thanksgiving Abroad 2019 – Florence

We landed in Florence around 1:30pm local time. The Florence airport is really small which makes life easier for people who’ve just flown for 15 hours. We grabbed our suitcases and wheeled them over to the tram stop outside of the terminal. The tram system is new and although most blogs and guidebooks to Florence still say to take the expensive bus, the tram was 3 Euros for the both of us and dropped us at the main train station in town. From there, we had a bit of a walk because we were staying in the Oltrarno neighborhood and in Florence, there is no such thing as a direct route to anywhere.

We crossed the Arno just north of the Ponte Vecchio and we stopped like the idiot tourists that we are to take a bunch of photos before winding our way to the entrance of the apartment my hubby had booked. The extremely friendly host came down to open the door and get us into the unit. While not luxurious, it was functional, clean, and in an amazing location. We got situated and then immediately headed back out to wander while the weather was sunny.

We checked out the Palazzo Vecchio before making our way to the Duomo. It was getting to be just around sunset by this time so I dragged the hubster to the nearby Oblate Library for a close-up view of the dome to go with a glass of wine. Afterwards, we wandered along the winding streets, marveling over the beautiful Christmas lights strung along the major avenues.

Although I’ve heard horror stories about how absurdly overcrowded Florence can be in the high season, late November was joyously quiet. We were able to walk without being jostled by a horde of people. Although the weather was cool, it just gave us a perfect excuse to browse the shops selling leather bags, gloves, and scarves. We ate a very early dinner by Italian standards and headed back to our apartment to try to catch up on sleep.

The next morning, I woke around 9am to see blue skies out the window. My sleeping hubby wasn’t budging so I got dressed and walked to the local market for snacks. Because I didn’t even know where we were staying before we got to the apartment, I didn’t have the opportunity to study a map. So I took a few wrong turns that really just extended my exploration. When I returned to the apartment, my husband was finally up and ready to go. We were staying very close to the Boboli Gardens and I was surprised when hubby said he wanted to go and check it out. Normally, he’s not a garden-type but the sprawling grounds were more park-like than either of us expected. The weather was beautiful, perfect for outdoor wandering.

After, we crossed the Arno on the Ponte Vecchio back into town and walked for miles. As we passed a historic church, I realized that it held a ticket office that also sold admission tickets to other attractions in town. I told the hubby to wait a minute and went in. I was able to purchase an advance ticket for the next day to the Uffuzi for me and two for the Accademia the day after. I was worried that because I hadn’t pre-booked tickets that we would end up waiting in long admission lines because of my slackerness. But fortunately in low season I could get advanced reservation tickets with less than a full day’s notice. And to make my frugal heart happy, I didn’t have to pay the upcharge that the online ticketing companies assess. So when I emerged, I triumphantly told my hubby that I had saved 25 Euros which I was now going to spend on a leather purse (it’s super cute, by the way).

We wandered, we ate amazing pasta, we slurped up more gelato than we had room for… Florence is an amazing town to be aimless in. The next morning, I set an alarm to make sure that I was up, coherent, and at the Uffizi reserved-ticket entrance early. Even though my specified time was 10am, the guard let me in 20 minutes early. Although there were a fair number of people in the museum, I had ample room to read the placards for pretty much every display I stopped at. I even got to get up close to Primavera as well as the Birth of Venus to appreciate the brushstrokes. I’ve heard that the Uffizi is a madhouse most of the time; but aside from getting irritated with the Chinese tour groups getting their photos taken one at a time in front of every major work of art (and sorry, not sorry that I’m in the background of 1400 photos that day but I’m not waiting 3 hours for y’all to finish your protracted photo shoot in front of Venus), it was way less crowded than I expected. Apologies to anyone who’s ever been there in summer if it seemed like I’m gloating (because I am). I found it interesting that there are very few places to sit and just absorb a particular piece of art. I’m sure it’s by design to move people along nowadays but I do miss the opportunity to really study something in detail. (Yes, I know I’m the old lady railing against the rise of limited attention spans in our culture but I have fond memories of sitting in quiet contemplation at art museums in my youth…)

After being overloaded on Renaissance art, I met the hubby for lunch and more walking. The weather had turned cooler and rainy so we ducked in and out of various gelato shops as we walked. Despite knowing in advance about the scam of dudes “handing out African art bracelets to celebrate the birth of his first child”, my hubby still got suckered in. Fortunately for him, I’m the one that was carrying the cash so when the inevitable “can you help me help my new family” line came up, the hubby was able to say truthfully that he had no cash on him. Over the course of our trip, we got accosted more times than I could count and it got to the point where I was trying to teach myself how to say “that’s not really your baby” in Italian just to throw them off for a minute so we could escape. I have perfected the “you don’t even want to fuck with me” face but the hubby is way too American in his trying-to-be-friendly-to-everyone approach. I would just keep on walking and then have to turn around after 30 seconds and yell “Basta, enough”, point to my hubby and make the “let’s go” hand wave thing. I told my husband we should just give the friendliest dude some money in exchange for his bracelets and then wear them for the rest of the trip to show the next 849 guys pulling the same thing that we’ve already paid our fee. The only downside of places being way less crowded is there’s a smaller pool for these sharks to feed on.

The next day was Thanksgiving Day in the United States. I dragged the hubby out of bed early to make our way to L’Accademia. One of the two requests my husband had made for this trip was that he wanted to see the David statue and the Sistine Chapel. (I told him that seeing the replica David in the courtyard of the Palazzo Vecchio did not count.) We were able to enter the museum 15 minutes before our allotted time. After checking out the oddly compelling exhibit on historical musical instruments, we made our way to the Michelangelo section. Turning the corner and seeing the rows of the Prisoner series with the looming statue of David in the distance nearly made me swoon. While my husband immediately made a beeline to David, I examined each one of the Prisoner pieces first. It’s incredible when you look at these half-finished pieces and realize that you can see chisel marks that Michelangelo himself made. By the time I got to the David, I was able to fully appreciate what it must have taken to not only chisel out the form but then hand polish it to the sheen it has today. The most amazing thing was the lack of crowds. I was able to not only get up as close as you’re allowed to, but was able to walk a complete circuit around the statue (and yes, the facial expression really does change as you view it from different angles).

Even the hubby was able to appreciate the artistry. Although L’Accademia is far smaller than the Uffizi, it’s probably way more approachable for people like my hubby who have limited art history exposure and may not appreciate room after room of the progression of Renaissance art.

That night, we had our Thanksgiving dinner in an extremely popular with the locals restaurant in the Oltrarno neighborhood. The steak Florentine was sublime and the wine we selected was the best Italian wine I’ve ever tasted. It was an incredible way to cap off the day. Every year since we’ve started Thanksgiving abroad, our Thanksgiving dinners have been amazing and make me thankful that I’m able to experience the places I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to.

The next morning, we packed up and slogged our way through the rain back to the tram stop to head back towards the airport to pick up our rental car for the next phase of our Italian Thanksgiving Abroad adventure.