After leaving our hotel in Cadenabbia, we took the ferry across to Varenna and then took a regional train to Milano Centrale. Milano Centrale is huge – it’s akin to an airport, really. We had about an hour an a half to wait before our train left for Florence so we went to one of the numerous eateries and grabbed lunch before we tried to figure out where our train was…(more on that in a later post)

It was late afternoon when we arrived in Florence, and once we found our (rather charming) Airbnb apartment near the Duomo (dating from the 1500’s!), and ran to the supermarket, and unpacked…we were exhausted.

The next day we wandered a bit around the Duomo, saw the crowds, said “nah”….and headed over to Palazzo dei Pitti And Boboli Gardens. I’ve always been fascinated by the Medicis, so this one wasn’t a hard sell for me at all!

The next day we wandered around for a bit before hiking up the hill to Pizzale Michelangelo.

After that big expenditure of energy, we needed a reward! Now you see it…

Now you don’t!

(Florence, part 2 coming soon…featuring Botticelli 😍)