Fun in Florence for the Fourth! Part One

Katie Johnson
Jul 9, 2025
13 min read

After enjoying Memorial Day in Poland, we took the month of June off from traveling since school closed for summer and Bryan spent Juneteenth on duty. With some time to enjoy Spain's summer, we were ready to get back to traveling for the July Fourth weekend- and this time we are headed back to Italy!

July 3: Florence, Italy

RyanAir has a direct flight from Sevilla Airport to Pisa multiple times a week, and we caught the Thursday 6:50 am flight! That meant waking up at 3:45 am, but nothing can stop us from cheap, direct flights!

Pisa International Airport: Aeroporto Internazionale di Pisa

After a short delay, we landed in Pisa at 10 am and hustled our way to Pisa Centrale train station just in time for our 10:35 am train to Florence! An hour's ride later, and we were in the world's capital for Renaissance art!

Albergo Bencidormi

We quickly dropped our bags at the cutest little boutique hotel, Albergo Bencidormi. Located just 5 minutes from the train station, this hotel was perfect for our visit! The staff were some of the friendliest we have encountered at a European hotel- and we have stayed at a lot!

Trattoria Sergio Gozzi

Our day may have started at 3:45 am, but by noon we were ordering Italian wine and eating pasta! Trattoria Sergio Gozzi doesn't take reservations, but we arrived right as they opened so we could try their famous slow-cooked beef. Thanks, Kelly and Jamie, for the recommendation!

Il Papiro

With a little time to kill before our first tour of the trip, we spent some time exploring the city's cute shops, one of which was Il Papiro, a local paper shop that handmakes their own notebooks and paper products using an ancient Florentine marbling process.

We also passed by the city's iconic landmark: the Duomo, where we found a bunch of local artists set up. We lucked out by finding Agim Hajzeri, a local artist painting watercolors right there outside the Duomo! After talking with him, he let us customize the piece he was currently working on- he painted the flowers light pink so we could add a new color to our watercolor wall! I have to say, this is a first- we have a truly customized art piece now in our collection!

Nothing screams American more than a frozen coffee, but with temperatures hitting 95, we were eager for anything cold! 12 oz coffee was located right in Piazza del Duomo, and tasted great! Best €5 we spent that day!

Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze

Now it was time for the day's main attraction: the Gallery of the Academy of Florence. As we met our guide, I spotted some graffiti of the museum's main draw: Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni.

As we entered the small museum, we began by learning a little about the creation of marble statues. Most artists created clay models before sculpting their final marble pieces. With clay, they could carve away and add clay as needed to form the exact measurements they desired for the piece, before moving over to the unforgiving marble material.

Jean Boulogne's The Abduction of the Sabine Women is a clay sculpture created as a practice model before sculpting the final marble version that is now located in Piazza della Signoria of Florence. (I have a photo of that piece later in this blog!)

Now, I did say MOST artists worked this way. Michelangelo is not like most artists. When he sculpted David, he just went in with a chisel and got to work- no practice run with clay! When people say he is a genius, they aren't kidding.

We learned a few things about Michelangelo's most famous statue:

Two other sculptors were hired to make David, but both quit when they realized the piece of marble was filled with imperfections. When Michelangelo took over, he only worked at night to avoid an audience. If the piece broke during creation, he didn't want people to witness his failure.
The statue was originally commissioned for the rooftop of the Duomo, but upon completion, it was considered too perfect to be so far from eyesight. A committee was put together to determine a better location. On that committee were fellow artists Leonardo Da Vinci and Sandro Botticelli. (More on those two guys later!) Eventually, it was placed in the main city's square, Palazzo Vecchio, where it remained for over 200 years with a leaf covering its genitalia.
In 1873, the David became porous when chemicals were used to try and clean it. To preserve it, it was moved into this museum, where it has been housed ever since. It took weeks to build a special railway and wheeled platform to transport the massive statue, and they slowly moved it across the city over 11 days.
In 1991, the statue was attacked by a madman with a hammer. He was able to damage the right foot before museum visitors wrestled him to the ground and held him until the police arrived. (Something similar happened to La Pieta in the Vatican...crazy people with hammers love to destroy Michelangelo's works!)
Often considered the "perfect man," Michelangelo's David has slightly large hands for his proportions. Since the statue was originally sculpted for the top of the city's cathedral, these enlarged hands were meant to look accurate from way up high. Even knowing that his work would be seen from a low perspective, Michelangelo still added intense details like bulging veins and knuckle details to his masterpiece.

While the majority of people are transfixed on Michelangelo's David, our guide also made sure to point out the four unfinished Michelangelo sculptures lining the hallway to the main attraction. These four pillars of marble showcase Michelangelo's talent for seeing the statue within and his creative process. What started as a slab of rock can be transformed into the impressive works we see all around the gallery.

Here's another little fun fact: these four unfinished statues are part of a set of six that were intended for a pope's tomb. The other two statues from this set are displayed in the Louve and appear more complete than these! We saw them during our visit with Jennifer and Kevin! Look at us, the art connoisseurs!

Speaking of traveling with the parents, the final Michelangelo of the day was Palestrina Piety, another sculpture he did of Mary holding the crucified Christ. This one is much less known than the Pieta we saw in St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican with Mom and Dad, and it was sculpted in the final years of his life. (Yep, I'm talking about that statue that was also damaged by a hammer-wielding fanatic!)

Just look at us, the art buffs, dragging our parents to view art all over Europe!

Piazza del Duomo

Whew! It's been a packed day so far, and it's still not over yet! Bryan may have thought the day was over, but I had a free walking tour of the city scheduled for 4:30 pm, so here we go!

Our first stop of the walking tour was the famed Florence Cathedral, commonly known as the Duomo. We learned that duomo just means "main church" in Italian, but this cathedral has been nicknamed the duomo by tourists. It took 140 years to build and was the largest cathedral until St. Peter's Basilica was built in the Vatican. It is still the largest masonry dome ever constructed; it was so large and heavy that the city required a design competition to develop a new engineering style to complete the dome!

This was the church where Michelangelo's David was supposed to be displayed, but as you can tell from the green and white facade, it is stunning even without the famous sculpture.

The Florence Cathedral is also one of the largest churches with a marble facade along all exterior walls. Most cities just decorate the main front entrance as a way to save money, but the Florentine people weren't going to be outshone! (It also helps that the marble mines are less than an hour's drive from here!)

Here's a few things we learned as our tour continued:

Some of the ancient walls have been preserved and still showcase the metal rings used to tie up horses.
Dante Alighieri was born and baptized here in Florence! The famous poet wrote the Divine Comedy and based the poem's main character, Beatrice, on a woman he was in love with. While Beatrice in the play was designed to lead him through the afterlife and was a symbol of pure love and devotion, she didn't return his affections in real life.
Several old watch towers have been converted into homes around the city! The cylindrical building below remains from back when the city of Florence was surrounded by walls.
In ancient times, families were charged taxes based on estimates of the first floor square footage. To avoid paying more taxes, many houses would build upper floor expansions that extended into alleyways- like the fourth picture below!

Piazza della Signoria

Another famous square in Florence is Piazza della Signoria, which is home to the old government building of the city. In 1540, the Medici family took over this government building and turned it into their formal residence, decking it out in an expensive fashion.

Located in this square is Jean Boulogne's final marble version of Abduction of a Sabine Woman, the clay version we saw earlier in the art museum. Another noticeable feature is the giant water fountain with a sculpture of Neptune.

Ponte Vecchio

Right outside the main square is Ponte Vecchio, a medieval stone arch bridge that houses shops along the entire length of the bridge. These shops make Ponte Vecchio one of three medieval bridges that survive with this style of design. The other two are the Pulteney Bridge in Bath, and the Rialto Bridge in Venice- both of which we have visited! It's also impressive that this is the only bridge in all of Florence that survived the bombings of WWII.

If you look closely, you can see the enclosed hallway along the top of the bridge's shops. When the Medici family built a bigger villa on the other side of the river, they also funded a private hallway connecting their home with the government building. You know you are a wealthy family when you can't even walk along the same streets as regular people!

By now, our feet are killing us, and we are fighting sleep. As we made our way back to the hotel, we passed another modern art form- sidewalk chalk inspired by Da Vinci's Mona Lisa! Pretty impressive!

July 4: Tuscany Wine Tour

Happy Independence Day, America! While our fellow Americans are spending the day grilling hot dogs and watching fireworks, we are spending it in the Tuscan countryside on a wine tour!

Piazzale Michelangelo

Our tour began at 9:30 am, where we met our guide, Ginevra, an international wine sommelier, and boarded our off-roading bus for a day of fun! Our adventure started with a drive by of Piazzale Michelangelo, the famous sunset-watching location overlooking the city.

Tenuta Poggio Torselli

Our first wine tour was of a small, family-run vineyard, Tenuta Poggio Torselli. We began our tour through the vineyard, where we spotted plump red grapes just starting to ripen. We learned that the grapes will be harvested in August for this year's wine production.

Just look at that scenery! The view from this villa is spectacular! From rolling hills filled with grapevines and olive trees, we could even spot Florence's Duomo in the distance!

After sweating our way through the vines, we headed indoors to their production facility. Much like the wine tours we did in Bordeaux and Lagos, this tour began with an introduction to the wine-making process. While most wines are "brewed" in aluminum tanks, much of the Tuscan region has gone back to the old way of fermenting in concrete containers before aging the wine in French Oak barrels.

I learned that "Tuscany" is the entire region in central Italy. The capital of Tuscany is Florence, and it spans south of Cinque Terre to the north of Rome. Within the Tuscany region is a smaller area known as Chianti, a hillside region between the cities of Florence and Siena. This area is known for producing the Sangiovese grapes that make a dry red wine that the region is famous for.

Tenuta Poggio Torselli is a vineyard that produces the Chianti Classico wines. These wines require 12 months of aging inside oak barrels, while the "older brother" of wines, the Chianti Classico Riserva, has to age 24 months. If you are ever shopping for a good Italian red wine, you can recognize the Chianti Classico bottle by the classic rooster symbol on the neck of the bottle!

While Ginevra taught us all about Tuscan wines, we also had some free time to explore the stunningly beautiful villa. This villa dates back to 1427- before America was even discovered! What started as a fancy villa for wealthy families to flee the city during the summer months has now turned into a vast vineyard producing one of the top types of wine in the world. The grounds were impeccable- this place was gorgeous!

For our tasting, we started with their "experimental" wine that is only aged in the cement containers, and is pictured above with the light blue label. This wine was refreshing and was the perfect start to our hot afternoon of tastings!

We also got to try the three levels of Chianti wines. The lowest level is Chianti Classico (aged 12 months- red label), then the Chianti Classico DOCG Riserva (aged 24 months-grey label), followed by the top production Chianti Classico DOCG Gran Selezione " Montecapri " (aged 30 months-dark blue label).

The owners then offered for us to try their other experimental wine- an "orange wine." Bryan and I had never heard of this, but orange wine is produced by leaving the white grape skins with the wine as it begins fermenting for the first few days. While the process of leaving the skins with the wine is common in producing red wines, it causes white wine to turn orange in color and taste when this process is done with white wine! This wine was a little sweet for our taste, but we learned something new!

After enjoying ourselves and asking all the questions we could come up with Bryan and I decided to buy a box of Chianti Classico Riserva wine to ship back home! With only a year left in Spain, it's time for us to start building that wine shipment!

Badia di Passignano: Abbazia di San Michele Arcangelo a Passignano

Eventually, it was time to make moves and continue our journey to the next vineyard! Along the bumpy journey, we enjoyed an off-road adventure along dirt paths! We had one photo stop at a viewpoint with an 8th-century monastery overlooking grape vines!

La Cantinetta Di Rignana

Our next stop began with a glass of rosé and continued with a lunch of various bruschettas, tomato-based pasta, and truffle ravioli. The lunch was phenomenal and gave us a chance to meet our fellow wine tasters: newlyweds from Texas and a couple from Argentina & Norway.

With another Chianti Classico tasting alongside lunch, Bryan and I ended our wine tour with another box of wine being shipped to our home in Spain!

Today's wine tour was a great experience! Out of all the wine tours we have done, I would argue this tour was the best. Ginevra did a great job simplifying the wine knowledge and making the information easily understood. The tastings, the villas, and the food served were all phenomenal!

But the day isn't over yet! Once we got back to Florence, Bryan and I decided the wine journey needed to continue! It is an American holiday! But first, we had to cross back over to the main part of the city.

Ponte Vecchio

Yesterday we had an introduction to this famous bridge, and today we figured we should walk along the Ponte Vecchio. While it's historically important for surviving as long as it has, nowadays it's packed with jewelry shops and souvenir booths...not really worth fighting the crowds!

Antica Bottega Wine Window

If you know anything about Florence, you probably have heard of its famous wine windows. These buchette del vinos are small arched cutouts that date back to Medieval times when wealthy families wanted to sell wine but didn't want to pay storefront taxes. Instead of opening up a full shop and being charged more in taxes, they would just cut a hole in their walls and serve wine through it in a more discreet way!

While now surely taxed, these wine windows were calling our name! We had spotted our first one yesterday on the walking tour, so we beelined for this shop for a €5 glass of red wine. Served in a plastic cup if "take away" or a real glass if you stay nearby and enjoy, this was a fun way to enjoy the local (tourist) culture!

David la Gelateria

What pairs with wine? Ice cream!

Bryan found a cute gelato shop that specializes in affogatos. Together we split a scoop of local lemon and a delicious affogato! This hit the spot and was the perfect cold treat on this sizzling day!

The Lion's Fountain Irish Pub

Right next door to David's was a classic Bryan stop-in: an Irish pub. But this Irish pub was unique in that it offered specialized shots for major colleges and universities in the USA! After spotting the ECU shot with Jaegar, we both opted to go with the tried and true NCSU shot of tequila, peach, and Sprite!

Go Pack!

We even pointed out the shot for the University of Florida for Kelly- I wonder if her fellow residents would enjoy this Italian shop's shot?!

Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence: Basilica di Santa Croce di Firenze

As we continued exploring Florence, we stumbled upon Basilica di Santa Croce di Firenze, the basilica where both Michaelgelo and Galileo are buried!

Osteria San Fiorenzo & Buchetta del Vino

As we made our way back into the city's center, we enjoyed two other wine windows. Our advice for fellow travelers: just go to our first wine window, Antica Bottega, where the wines are half the price of these more public wine windows.

Osteria San Fiorenzo was definitely the most touristy, with glasses of wine starting at €10 and a line along the side of the building. Buchetta del Vino was a little better priced and didn't have a crowd, so it would be another good option to try!

Lo Schiacciavino - Santa Croce

With all that wine flowing, it was time for some food! Since we had already enjoyed Florence's famous beef, it was time to try their sandwiches, and Lo Schiacciavino did not disappoint! After looking over their menu, we just asked the server for his recommendations and went with his top two.

Let me tell you- this was the best sandwich I have ever eaten. The fresh salami, arugula, and the crunch on that bread were SO GOOD. There's a reason this city is famous for its sandwiches, and I am officially a fan!

Pompi

As we returned to our hotel, we made one final pit stop at Pompi, Kelly's favorite tiramisu restaurant! Bryan got a classic one to enjoy back in the room as his final treat of the day!

While we were off enjoying wine in a new city, these two pups were surviving fireworks back in Rota. While I did feel a little mom guilt over abandoning them during the crazy night of loud noises, our dogsitter was happy to sit with them and keep them calm! I'm sure our neighbors appreciated it just as much as Hugo and Reynolds!