Not too far from San Gimignano is the capital of Tuscany, Florence. Considered by some to be the birthplace of the Renaissance, Florence has inspired some of the greats from Leonardo da Vinci to Michelangelo. Whether it be a far panoramic view of the city or an intimate walk through the streets, Florence offers a taste of Tuscany and Italy that is almost unrivaled.

We had a few different trips to the city, but we will roll them up into one nicely packaged post right here. So lets get the basics out of the way so I can move onto what I felt was one of the best nights of the trip. Much like Rome, we have visited Florence in the past, and truth be told when we were here 10 years ago we met some really great people that lead us on some great adventures, mixed that with the awe of all the art and architecture the city has, it was an easy choice to come back.

So we started on top of Michelangelo Hill to soak in the views and get a glimpse of the approaching storm. In the distance you can see the Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral or the Florence cathedral, the tower of Palazzo Vecchio, the Arno river, and well pretty much everything.

Now onto our second trip to Florence and one of my favorite nights of the trip…Marissa was meh on it. Anyway, what trip to Europe would be complete without taking in some Futbol! The local team of Florence is the ACF Fiorentina, also known as the Viola due to the colors of the city. I don’t have much to say about it, I will let the pics and videos do the talking.

The energy in the stadium was intense, even though it was a relatively small stadium, the crowd was so into it.  Here you can hear them introducing the players and the crowd basically does it for them:

The crowd at the game is just insane-  there are no rules.  The fans have tons of huge flags and banners and even set off flares or some type of crazy fireworks in the stands.

Here’s a video of the crowd going crazy singing their fight song:

Fiorentina won, and we got to see an awesome penalty shot:

After the game, we were a little drunk, so we went back to the food truck row to get more of the amazing sandwich we had earlier.  It was some kind of Tuscan style pork that had this amazing seasoning on it.  We bought one sandwich to share and the lady at the counter remembered me from before the game.  We slammed the sandwich and then I got the brilliant idea to just go back and ask her for just more of the meat because it was so good.  She thought it was adorable that I was just asking for meat and gave me a huge stack of the meat, laughing all the while, Marissa said she was smitten with me.

 

My dream night was made complete when we randomly stumbled upon a Hofbrauhaus bar near our hotel.  Full circle.

-Matt (generously edited by Marissa because I hate stuff like this)