48 Hours in Florence
Hi guys,
I'm back from a lovely trip to Florence, Italy. I was there longer than 2 days because I celebrated Christmas there and also visited Pisa. BUT you can visit Florence (or Firenze) in 2 days too. Here's how to!
So on day 1 I'd say, take a hike through the entire city so that you can find your way through it for the next day. Firence is like an open outdoors museum, so make sure to go check out every corner of it!
On day 2 I'd reccomend to go visit all the musea. We did 2 of them in one day, but 3 would've been better.
Day 1 The city Highlights: Duomo inside + musea, Ponte Veccio, Piazza della Signoria, Santa Croche, Sunset view: Piazzale Michelangelo.
On the first day, I'd start the tour with the Duomo. Make sure to book tickets! Inside the duomo, there's not very much to see but ofcourse the "duomo", but the musea around it are very interesting too. You can buy a combi ticket that's available for 3 days.
You can climb the duomo with over 400 stairs and get a stunning view over the ceiling ith frescoes and ofcourse the Florence- city view. The city is located near the Tuscany hills so the view is gorgeous!
Then after climbing, I'd say, explore the rest of the cathedral: the crypth, the baptistry and the museum of the opera.
After the cathedral, it'll probably be noon, so take time to have lunch and relax after all the climbing.
Close to the duomo, there's the Piazza della Signoria. This is the city's main square with the tower of the city hall (Palazzo Veccio).
From this place, you can walk towards the Santa Croche church, which is another gorgeous white marble church to visit.
Make sure to look up; there are stunning painted wooden ceilings inside the church and abbey.
After hiking through the city, return to the main square to go to the Ponte Vecchio. This bridge is not as spectacular as said on the internet but it's a cool idea that the shops that are located there, were probably already there for over 500 years.
When you walk over the bridge, you get to the other side of the Arno river. I took some stunning reflection shots there. The view is just gorgeous!
On the other side of the bridge is the Pallazzo Pitti located.
When you climb uphills, to the Piazzale Michelangelo, you'll get the best sunset view over Florence. On top of the hill is another stunning white marble church located called: San Miniato al Monte.
Day 2 Musea: Duomo Part 2, Palazzo Pitto, Ufizzi Gallery, Galleria Dell' accademia.
On the second day, you can start with visiting the other parts of the Duomo, like the "Giotto's Campanile" or the bell tower. Here you also have a stunning Florence view, and a view over the entire church, which is pretty nice! We did these two climbs on two separate days, for very obvious reasons haha, yes, another 400+ steps!
After the climbing, you can go to the Palazzo Pitti. We only visited the gardens because it was closed on mondays and ond christmas... But inside the palace, you can visit the royal appartments. The garden was rather small, but lovely to visit! Especially with the winter sun. The garden got that cold winter glow from then sun, that I love so much.
We had lunch in front of this palace on a terrace, twice, whoops! It was super warm in the sun and we didn't have any wind there. In the middle of the winter, we were able to eat in our T-shirts, yay! I had sooo much pasta while being in Italy, like 2 meals of pasta a day. DUH!
Then after lunch, you can go to the two most famous Florence musea. First, start with the Uffizi museum because it's pretty large to visit. The Galleria Dell' Accademia is rather small.
Make sure to book all your tickets in advance! Even in the winter, some tickets were already sold out...
So what to expect in both musea? Well, a loooot of Renaissance artwork. I was in awe the whole day. And also; the palazzo itself, where the Ufizzi museum is located, is beyond stunning, even without all the artwork.
Here are my highlights!
We were walking around in this museum for about two hours and we were in a rush because of the time lock of both museums... but if you have more time, you can walk around here for about 4 hours I think!
So then let's get onto museum 2: the Galleria Dell' Accademia with the David of Michelangelo.
Inside the museum, there's a room with a loooot of statues. All very gorgeous and impressing, but the most impressing statue was the David. It's 5m+ tall and located at the end of the hallway. Your attention just gets drawn into him. To me personally, this is the perfect statue of the perfect man. In real life, he is even more stunning. You can easily stare at hm for over 15 minutes, just to figure out every little detail of his body. Not in a disgusting superficial way, though haha!
After all the visits, you'll probably be super tired.. so have a good rest at your hotel or appartment. And if you have some extra money left, book a room at the Four Seasons hotel. It's a stunning hotel, located inside an old palace.
But, too bad that I'm poor, so I was only able to take a peek inside the lobby, which was totally over the top decorated for the holidays!
So these were my highlights of this lovely Renaissance city. If you have enough time to visit it, make sure to enter all the chuches you pass, there might be some hidden gems out there!
And also: eat a lot of pasta. It's the best in Italy!
Have a great trip!
X Steph