Florence: Day 4

by Vincent | June 12, 2015

Today we walked to the top of the Duomo, went to a park, and ate at a tasty trattoria.

Breakfast

For breakfast we ate at a yogurt shop near the apartment. Celeste and I also had some coffee (Italy does have bigger coffee mugs than France, hurrah!).

Duomo

Then we split up to go to the Duomo. My mother-in-law, aunt, and niece split off and went to go do their own thing while me, Celeste, sister-in-law and brother-in-law all went to walk to the top of the Duomo. My brother-in-law had brought his GoPro Hero 4 for the trip so as we ascended the unending stairs and navigated the tiny corridors, while he recorded it all.

Through twisting, turning, and super tiny passages we walked until we made it to the level just under the dome, pictured above. It was pretty impressive seeing the paintings up close.

After that we walked a little farther up and emerged on the roof. The sights were worth it with Florence sprawled around you.

After climbing we were exhausted. It was time to eat. We headed back to the apartment to meet up with everyone else and then headed back out in search of food.

We ended up at a place called Dal Barone, a super awesome sandwich shop near the Duomo. Some of the crew wanted to eat at the apartment but me, Celeste, and her mother ate inside. They have every sandwich imaginable and a ton of hamburgers. I had a double burger which was delicious. I’d highly recommend this place if you’re in town.

Edoardo’s

Imagine the best ice cream you’ve ever had. Now multiply that sensation by a hundred and you’ll get Edoardo’s. Hands down, this is the best gelato (or ice cream) I’ve ever had in my life. According to our pizza teacher from last night, Edoardo’s is the best gelato shop in Florence and we totally agree. The best part? It was literally 50 feet from our apartment to the shop, right in front of the Duomo. Anytime you go, there’ll be a line. The wait can be up to 35–40 minutes but it’s totally worth it! One time we saw some people think about going but deciding not to because of the line. I feel so bad for them — they really missed out.

For my first visit (we ate there another 3–4 times before leaving) I had Vanilla and Melon. The Vanilla was unlike anything I’ve tasted — it was rich and creamy, soooooo good. The melon was also really good, a cantaloupe sorbet. They make their own waffle cones and the flavors rotate daily. Celeste had hazelnut and mango.

Parco del Cascine

After scarfing down the heavenly gelato some of us thought it might be good to walk it off and visit a park. Me, Celeste, her mom, her aunt, and our niece went for a walk along the river towards a park I saw on the map, Parco del Cascine.

The walk took us along the river and then we finally got to the park. It was admittedly a bit of a let down — nothing like the parks and gardens we’d come to expect in Europe. In retrospect, the Boboli Gardens are probably what you’d expect a park to be — but they’re about 10 euros to enter so we never visited during our trip. Cascine was a good park to play in, offering some open field and trailways but it was nothing to write home about and is a bit of a walk from the city center.

Trattoria Pallottino

Finally we ended the night by going to dinner at a well-reviewed trattoria, picked out by my sister- and brother-in-law. I had lasagna and we also had some tiramisu. It was all excellent, I had to have lasagna before leaving Italy and it hit the spot. Celeste had a soupy dish and it tasted really good as well. She thought she was ordering tomato soup, but it was a very thick soup, almost a mash. Her niece ate a lot of it, we were pretty proud that she was so daring. Basically everything was a hit.

We washed the dinner down with some nice Chianti and headed home for the night.