Florence!!! The birthplace of the Renaissance is full of life, history, art, shopping, wining & dining. What is not to love, my peeps!!?

Where we stayed

We went in December, so we were able to stay in this amazing Airbnb with an insane view of the duomo for an affordable price. I cannot recommend this place enough; it was wonderful, and the hostess was so nice and helpful with recs in the city.

Activities

-Climb the Duomo: we didn’t get around to this on this trip, but I did it when I was a student, and I def recommend it, if you’re not scared of heights obvi

-Visit the Art Museums!!! The Uffitzi is most iconic museum in Florence– holding art from Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, & Michelangelo to name a few. The Academia is most famous for housing the statue of David.

–Visit the Boboli Gardens: Behind the Medici family’s Pitti Palace, sits the vast Boboli Gardens. Wow– Garrett and I were blown away by these gardens! It was a great afternoon outdoor activity.

-Take wine tasting and/or cooking classes!!! We personally did this activity through Airbnb experiences and I cannot recommend it enough!! First off, they pick you up in Florence and drive you 30 minutes outside of the hustle and bustle of the city and bring you to their farm in the rolling hills of Tuscany

Secondly, it is a 7 hour experience where you will tour their farm, taste their 100% organic wines, take a pasta making course and then eat your pasta creations Italian family dinner style with all the people on the tour. 

In the winter we only paid $60 a person for the whole experience– wow! If you’re in town for a few days, I would do this one of your first days, so you can buy their wine and bring it back to where you’re staying because their wine is 11/10 delicious!!

-Go to the leather markets: Florence is known for their leather goods. They have endless goods in the San Lorenzo outdoor market. Typically the goods don’t have pricetags, so when you ask the vendor what the price is, just know they’re just throwing a number out. You should def haggle down the price, they are almost always negotiable.

The outdoor market may not be the best place to find 100% authentic Italian leather goods, so if you’re mostly worried about that, I would buy in a store instead of the market.

We bought my leather jacket at Leather Shop Omidimo and I love it, but warning… only go here if you are pretty set on buying, the salesmen are really good at their jobs & you most likely will be walking out the owner of a new Italian leather jacket, lol.