Florence: 7th -11th

I was told by Gemma that Florence is the ultimate shopping experience and she was not wrong. We arrived on a Sunday and the city was bustling with people and the shops were packed with eager buyers looking for a winter sales bargain. During our first afternoon wandering the streets we were able to absorb the beauty of this city whilst realising that it was incredibly cold as the wind tunnelled through the streets. Locals said it usually started to warm up at this time of the year, but we were not so lucky as the snow started falling out of the sky (all the more excuse to duck into a shop and see what they had to offer). The following day Sarah and i were lured into the shops by the possibility of finding an item that we loved, only to discover that there is an extreme amount of leather goods for sale, the question been who was selling genuine quality leather? There were so many bags and jackets in the market stalls, with prices starting at €300 and the sales man going “for you i make discount...€150 for the pretty girls”, alarm bells go off, I’m not sure if it was the quality we were after. Nevertheless we stumbled across a lovely shop located off the main path that had the most exquisite bags i had ever seen. The designs were unique and the leather was from the same Deer farm that PRADA used, well we could not resist the Italian style...purchase complete.


Because Florence is only an hour from Pisa we decided to do a day trip there to check out the famous leaning tower. It really was fantastic to see, i just can’t believe it’s still standing. Of course like all the other tourists we had to have the photo where we keep the tower upright. The surrounding buildings were also really beautiful, and immaculately white, which made a nice change as a lot of monuments we had seen during the trip were damaged by pollution.

The last day in Florence was taken up with a little more site seeing in which we came across the Ponte Vecchio, the famous bridge that houses a multitude of goldsmiths and jewellery shops, with its medieval workshops overhanging the bridge. The bridge itself was built in 1345, and is the only bridge on the Arno River that was not destroyed in World War II.

We also were in awe of The Basilica Duomo of Florence which was established in 1296 in the Gothic style and completed structurally in 1436 with the dome engineered by Filippo Brunelleschi. The exterior of the basilica is faced with polychrome marble panels in various shades of green and pink bordered by white and has an elaborate 19th century Gothic Revival facade by Emilio De Fabris. It was a lovely building and really looked amazing in the centre of the city.

All in all i loved Florence simply for its vast shopping, great architecture and its delicious food. If you have the eye for something quality then this is the city to purchase it in. There is everything from leather to terracotta, if only i had more room in my suitcase!