Le Journal de +Louise

{Trip Report 09 Nov 08 & 10 Nov 08}

We awoke bright and early, had a hearty breakfast wheeled and trolleyed right into our room by Christian =)

We decided to take it slow and strolled leisurely into the town centre and towards the river.

A “human sculpture” outside the Uffizi Gallery…

Ponte Vecchio

Ponte Vecchio is the medieval bridge over the Arno River and is occupied by jewellers, souvenir sellers and art dealers.

I went hunting for vintage brooches, haggled and went home with 3 authentic shell cameos =)

We stopped by for some delectable gelati…

We went across the bridge and stumbled upon Papier Arti E Mestieri, a lovely quaint papier shop in Piazza di Santa Maria Soprano. The entire shop is filled with gorgeous leather bound journals, handmade marbled paper, tooled bookmarks and handstamped cards.

Before dinner, we caught a cab to Piazza Michaelangelo to bask in Florence’s golden skyline…

We celebrated my birthday at Golden View Open Bar, by the Ponte Vecchio, where we had the best seafood dinner, still unrivaled till today.

We were meant to only spend 3 days in Florence, having booked an early morning train heading towards Venice. However, we encountered a train strike (again) but this time, trains were cancelled for the ENTIRE day. We had to ring our hotel in Venice to hopefully be able to cancel the first night stay and thankfully, the owners were kind enough to not charge us a penalty. I rang Christian and he was able to put us up in one of the smaller rooms, so we dragged our sorry selves back to the BnB; to recover from the ordeal, we stopped by Santa Maria Novella Perfumeria, an opulent baroque gallery that houses fragrances, tonics, rose water and soaps. A bit pricey but I bought a bottle of ‘Angels of Florence’ as a souvenir =)