The Florence Region

Florence is within easy distance of many great destinations, so it makes a nice home base if you are traveling by bus or tours. We spent the day before arriving in Florence visiting a town or two in Tuscany and then heading to Pisa, which is not far from Florence.

We stopped in Pisa for a few hours to visit the Leaning Tower of Pisa Complex. It was definitely a very nice complex of buildings and worth the visit if you have ample time to spend. If you are tight on time when visiting Italy, I would definitely suggest choosing a day trip to Cinque Terre or Tuscany instead. For Cinque Terre and the Tuscany towns, be ready for walking uphill, especially at Cinque Terre, where you climb up to visit the beautiful seaside towns that cascade over the sides of the cliffs like a colorful waterfall of buildings. Everything in Italy is worth the climb.

After about three hours in Pisa, we headed to Florence Airport to drop off our car and catch the train to downtown Florence.

Florence is incredible. I would have loved a few more days just to wander around and relax in the city. The food was amazing, there were so many museums, and walking around the Florence Cathedral never got old. It is one of the most amazing pieces of architecture that I have ever seen. It would be worth going to Florence just to walk around the Florence Cathedral.

In terms of dining, I honestly can't say that much because in the three days we were in Florence, I ate at the same restaurant for all my meals - it was that good! I couldn't handle the idea of only having one meal at the restaurant! So, I guess my only food recommendation for Florence is the Yellow Bar. They hand-make the pasta fresh for each individual order! There are even a few seats next to the pasta maker where you can watch them make each individual order of pasta. Also, the waiters were amazing. Obviously, based on the frequency with which I ate there, they knew who we were and welcomed us each time, and our last dinner there was filled with free limoncello, meloncello, and hugs.