15 Days In Italy-and 1 night Amsterdam Part V

Florence
We were sad to leave Umbria, but also pleased to be heading to my husband’s favorite city in Italy, Florence. We dropped the car off at the airport, and took a taxi to our apartment in Santa Croce. Luckily the building featured an elevator, as our suitcases were getting to be very heavy by this time due to all of the wine, balsamic, cheese and olive oil that we had purchased. After we settled in, we had a late lunch and headed out to explore.

I had read various posts prior to the trip that suggested that Florence is now mobbed even more by tourists than pre-Covid, and that’s certainly the case. The area between the Uffizi and San Lorenzo was utterly packed with people. Tourists and school groups abounded. This made me wish we were back in Umbria! We ended up going back to our apartment and spent some time decompressing. The resulting attitude adjustment allowed the three of us to enjoy our two full remaining days in beautiful Florence. The crowds were not as bad the next day, and we made a point of getting out fairly early. Whenever the crowds started to get on our nerves, we’d take a break at a café or a restaurant for a bite, or slip across the river to the Oltrarno, which was of course busy but not insanely so. The only cultural type thing we did in Florence was a self tour of the Uffizi, which I had visited in 2009, but without an audio guide. We used the RS Uffizi audio tour, which was very informative. DH and my sister don’t care that much about art, but I certainly enjoyed the experience. The rest of the two full days we enjoyed in Florence was spent shopping and eating. I purchased a couple of gorgeous handbags from Bayside 1984 in Santa Croce, and my DH bought several hats and T-shirts. My sister purchased a couple pairs of shoes from Rive Gauche in the Oltrarno. So we made our contribution to supporting the local economy of Firenze. The best meals we had were at Il Bovo Hamburger Toscana and Ristorante Braceria Auditore.
Then back to the US on Saturday, or so we thought. The plane was delayed leaving Florence due to high winds in Amsterdam. When we landed, we raced to the gate for our transfer back to the USA, only to find that we had missed the flight by 10 minutes or so. The plane was still sitting on the tarmac 60 or so feet away, but the gangway was drawn, so no go. Of course there was no other flights back to Seattle or Portland on Delta/KLM that day, so we spent the night at an airport hotel. This initially made us very grumpy indeed, as the shuttle bus pulled up to the hotel, my sister exclaimed that it reminded her of a Travelodge. Luckily, the first impression proved incorrect. The hotel was really nice, not high end but very clean and well maintained, and the rooms very, very well designed. Plus each room has a huge Van Gogh print for décor. It’s called the Van der Valk Hotel Schiphol. The restaurant on site was top notch, and the staff so solicitous and kind, it made up for the inconvenience. It did help that this was all on Delta/KLM’s dime. Regretfully we did not make it to downtown Amsterdam for a quick visit, it’s only 7 or 8 miles away, I was sorely tempted.

The next day we were back to the US without a hitch. It was a great trip.