Luke booked us a two hour walking tour for this morning, so our first destination of today was the meeting spot for that at 9.45am. We met our lovely guide, Aurora, at Piazza San Lorenzo (the church there was built in 1296 AD), and learnt a lot about the history of Florence and the influential Medici family (who were traders, bankers, politicians, cardinals and then local royalty, but never doctors!).

Aurora took us to all the main sites over the next two hours, including the Duomo, Dante’s home, medieval towers, the Statue of David, Uffizi Galleries, and ended at Ponte Vecchio. She taught us a lot!

Aurora left us with a pdf of her restaurant and gelato recommendations, so we went to the top restaurant on her list for lunch. We arrived there just as they were opening so found a table easily, but there were queues waiting to enter as we left. We all enjoyed our lunch which started with hot focaccia, followed by bread called fettunta, with a main course of pasta for some and beef stew for others.

The wind was whipping up by then, so we felt we should keep going before the sun went down and it got too cold. We crossed Ponte Vecchio and walked past Pitti Palace through some local streets to get to an entrance of the Boboli gardens (which was not flat but quite hilly!). The walk through the gardens took us to an exit up the hill from Ponte Alle Grazie, which is the bridge closest to our apartment we can see out our windows.

Aurora had recommended we also visit Piazza Santa Croce if we had time, where there is a church with the tombs of Michelangelo, Machiavelli and others. We decided to check it out before heading back to the apartment. The kids decided they had seen enough museums and churches and artwork, so Ross and I took them for gelato while Luke, Beck and Tom checked out the church.

Once back at our apartment we were all too comfortable to go out again, so Ross and Luke went for a walk and picked up some takeaway pizza for dinner.

The boys’ room here is so big that Sam, Belle and Oli found they could make a space large enough to play soccer 😳 while Tom and Abi helped Cooper enrol in uni, and the rest of us relaxed and compared the number of steps we have walked today (16k for me, and I tapped out earlier than others because of my swollen left ankle).

We have enjoyed our short time in Florence and wish we had planned more days here. If Belle continues with her current plan of studying art or architecture, I’m trying to convince her to fit in a study tour here so we have an excuse to come back!