The Italy & Greece Trip: Chapter 1 – Travel & Florence

By Ryan LuckieUncategorized
In celebration of my time in Saudi Arabia coming to an end, our first anniversary, my 31st birthday, Amanda’s “29th” birthday we planned a Greek cruise, departing from Venice. We planned to arrive a few days early to see some of Italy, get over jet lag, and ensure we wouldn’t have any trouble getting to the port for departure.
Our trip started out a bit rough when we first got a glimpse of the upgrade list from the lounge in JFK. I was #1, and Amanda was #11. We skipped the lounge and went straight to the gate, arriving before the boarding crew. I was pretty upset when told that Amanda should have been #2 but that they had to execute the upgrade list as provided to them. After voicing my displeasure and asking for a supervisor they asked us to wait on the side. We got the only two first class upgrades with a waiting list of 18 people!

Milan Centrale Station

Italy’s train stations are nicer than ours. We headed for Florence immediately after landing in Milan.

It wasn’t long before we’d arrived in Florence, checked in, picked up a bottle of Prosseco, and headed to the hotel’s terrace. We were in a great location just 5 minutes walk from the train station at the Piazza di Santa Maria Novella. If ever in Florence I highly recommend Hotel SMN.

 I love being photographed, as you can tell from the picture.

 The Duomo Cathedral from the outside. We’ve still not headed into the Duomo. Perhaps our next visit.

We love Florence. Our first day we mostly stuck to the familiar, walking around, taking pictures of the beautiful architecture, grabbing a Gusta Pizza.
We really love Florence.

The second day in Italy, the first and only full day in Florence, we started out at the Piazza di Michelangelo,  making our way into the hills south of the city.

The city from the piazza.
Us in the piazza. I’m the ‘not as cute’ one on the left of the photographer.
Ponte Vecchio from piazza di Michelangelo. 

Last time we were in Florence we did not go to the Medici chapel. That was rectified this visit.

What is still to be rectified, [high five for the awesome segue] is the damage incurred from the cornerstone of the roof falling in years ago. Lots of renovations are still going on, but the chapel still maintained a ridiculous level of opulence. The cost in human man-hours to hand carve this gorgeous room boggles my mind.

More Medici chapel. 
More Medici chapel.
Michelangelo was the designer of the chapel but abandoned it before it’s completion when he relocated to Rome.
More Michelangelo at the Medici chapel.
We love the free water fountains all over Italy.  

We went to a central food market in Florence and had a wonderful meal at Il Ristorante. The map above outlined where everything was located on the top floor. On the bottom floor many small stores sold local produce and food products like olive oil.
Amanda enjoyed some melon and prosciutto. 

And I had the mixed grill.

We happened upon this museum, the Pitti Palace, around closing time. It is on the south side of the river where we haven’t spent very much time. They have a huge garden in the back thought that we’d really like to see on our next Tuscan adventure.

Amanda loved the lighting in this ally. And I love Amanda.

I actually do like getting photographed when eating, it is clearly when I look my best. We went back to our favorite little cafe from our last trip, but it wasn’t nearly as good as we remembered. The cheese cake seemed significantly smaller. (for all those readers of my previous blog)

The next morning we checked out and headed for Venice. Once in Venice we had to walk about a mile to the cruise port, including over this canal. Overall the trip went very smoothly, although it was a good hike with all our luggage.

It wasn’t long before we were on a boat.

The ship passed right through Canale Della Giudecca during our departure.
We met the Canale Grande, passed St Mark’s square and were headed into open seas. We headed inside to make our 8 PM dinner reservation. The next day would be at sea before arriving at our first Greek Island, Corfu. We’ll try to be quick about getting the rest of the trip documented.