Our European Adventure: Home of the Renaissance

From our villa in Lucca, Florence is around an hour away by train. Close enough that a few full days in the city made sense but far enough that we didn't feel the pull to go in every day. And while Amanda and I had been before, it was nearly two decades ago and our memories were fond, but perhaps a little fuzzy.

We ultimately decided to go into Florence twice during our stay with one day focused on visiting the Accademia Gallery and the areas north of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore while the second day we explored the rose gardens south of the river and then crossed over the Ponte Vecchio on our way to visit the Uffizi Gallery.

Top-tier museums are not something I had access to as a kid, Dallas isn't exactly a center for the arts, but while we were living in the UK and traveling around Europe a decade ago I discovered an interest in art that I didn't know I had. So getting our girls engaged with culture and the arts has been a focus of our current stay in Europe.

We began day one with a train ride and some pizza. I'll let you guess which girl was more excited about each of these based on the pictures

Then it was on to the Accademia Gallery. The last time we visited it was a quick in and out to see David so this time with a full day to spend in the city we took our time in each of the other galleries within the Museum. Several of the religious paintings were very interesting and there are a number of other sculptures and casts that we got to teach Charlotte about.

I'd be lying if didn't admit to spending most of our time with the throngs of other tourists who came to see Michelangelo's depiction of David. Charlotte is an exceptionally inquisitive girl and always asks dozens of questions when we take her somewhere new. And while that can be challenging at times it's also amazing to watch her engage with new ideas and experience the world as it grows around her. And thankfully, her Mother had to answer today's series of tough questions.

Olivia meanwhile was simply enjoying having her own space in the stroller away from everyone else.

Except when it got really loud...

Our last stop in the museum was the gallery of musical instruments. This was less impressive to me but they did have a couple of the best named instruments every made.

The rest of our first day we spent in search of wine windows, playing at a local park and enjoying the gelato

we found the cathedral instead of wine windows

But we checked off the playground with no problems

And the gelato with even less difficulty

Our second trip into Florence started at the Piazzale Michelangelo where we enjoyed an amazing panoramic view of the city across the river.

We continued our hunt for wine windows as we made our way to and across the Ponte Vecchio bridge.

If you knock on enough of them, eventually one will have wine

Charlotte REALLY liked the jewelry

We realized when checking the photo after that a certain 2-year-old had taken off her shoes
and socks mid-bridge. Thankfully, she'd stored them behind her & we didn't lose any shoes!

Then we made our way to the Uffizi. This is one of my favorite galleries with long main hallways, decorative ceilings and paintings from the greatest painters of their day.

Charlotte was less interested in the Uffizi. I think she likes sculpture more than paintings or it could have just been culture overload so we ended our time at the museum and went in search of wine windows and gelato.