Bella Firenze

One of my favorite countries in Europe is Italy. And amazingly, since Travers and I moved to Geneva, we had yet to travel there. My first trip to Italy was in junior high with my family. We went to Venice, Rome and Florence. And it was then that I first fell in love with the city of Florence! Then in college, I studied in Turino for a few months over the summer. My friend and I traveled a lot while we were there and ended our stay with a trip to Florence where I fell in love with it all over again! Then after Travers and I were married, we spent part of our honeymoon in Florence and the Chianti and Tuscany regions too!  So I was thrilled to be going back to Florence at the end of July, even though it was for work, as it is one of my favorite Italian cities.

I was there for 5 days, and unfortunately, wasn't able to see much of the tourist hot spots, but I walked across the famous Ponte Vecchio probably 10 times every day. I saw some beautiful wineries and vineyards in the Chianti countryside. And I helped run a 3 day event for several CEO's of various hotel brands. During the day, I was husseling back and forth along the Ponte Vecchio between the various beautiful Lungarno Collection Hotels, and made great friends of all the hotel staff that were helping run this event. While extremely busy setting up the event and making sure everything ran smoothly, I was able to sneak away a couple nights by myself to check out the city.

My first night, I went to a restaurant called Mamma Mia, which is in the heart of Florence on the Mercato Nuovo Square. This square is covered by pop up shops of leather goods and touristy items during the day, and at night is covered with people sitting admiring the Fontana del Porcellino, a statue of a wild boar that brings fortune to those that rub its nose.  After dinner, I strolled through the streets a bit, taking in the architecture and the buildings all lit up at night. I was able to see the replica of The David, but will have to wait until my next visit to go see the original again.

The next time I got a night to myself, I walked to the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, commonly known as the Duomo. I chose one of the most touristy restaurants in the Piazza del Duomo, and sat outside, staring up at this beautiful cathedral, as the sun set, soaking in the culture surrounding me, and enjoying a delicious pizza all to myself. It was moments like this where I wish Travers had been with me, and it brought back all the memories we had when we were here on our honeymoon. We will definitely have to come back and experience it all over again.

Throughout the rest of my time there, I was running around making sure everyone was happy and taken care of. And I was able to tag along on one of the evening excursions out to a castle and vineyards called Castello Di Nipozzano, now owned by the Frescobaldi family. We enjoyed a tour of the grounds and the wine cellars/caves and then enjoyed a delicious dinner with wine pairings of several delicious Frescobaldi wines. A story we walked away with is that every newborn child of the Frescobaldi family gets 100-500 cases of wine (depending on gender) from the year they were born. It is stored at the castle and for that child's important events such as birthdays and weddings, that child's wine will be drank for their event. We got to see some of the wine stored there and the youngest one I could find was born in 2003 and the oldest I saw was 1930! It was an amazing opportunity to see this winery and take in all the beautiful views of surrounding Tuscany.

From 2003

The final day of my stay in Florence was spent about an hour's drive back out in the Chianti region at Il Borro, another vineyard and winery owned by the Salvatore Ferragamo family. A huge estate, we hardly had time to see any of it, but what we did see were beautiful buildings, gardens, horses and wine!  We were able to meet Salavtore Ferragamo Jr. who manages Il Borro and kindly showed us around the grounds and cellars and gave us a short wine tasting lesson.  We finished with a tasty lunch before hopping in a van to head to the airport and back to Geneva. Not too bad for a work trip, but it definitely made me want to spend more of our vacations going to Italy, which I actually ended up getting to do for my birthday this year!