To my momma’s–It’s likely Mother’s Day while you are reading this, so happy Mothers Day I love you both so much!!! 😘💖

This morning I got up and packed up to head to the train station 🚉 so I could meet Maylin & Cara in Florence. I took the high speed rail so it was only 1.5 hours and booking online was super easy. From Rome you go leave from Termini station and the station in Florence is called Firenze-Santa Maria Novella. Taking in all the beautiful countryside on the train ride was definitely a perk! Rolling green hills, beautiful villas speckled throughout the area, sheep roaming, vineyards–all so breathtaking!

Once I arrived I found Maylin and Cara on the platform and away we went towards the hotel. We checked in, changed and headed out for some famous sandwiches Maylin heard about before we got here. THE HYPE WAS REAL. So, this place has 4 storefronts of the exact same menu right next to each other simply to accommodate the demand. It’s insane. Hahaha Every sandwich is 5 euro, doesn’t matter what you get. The name is Al Antico Vinaio-Panini. We ordered three different sandwiches and I ordered the boss, appropriately named. Ha I tried Cara and Maylin’s which were great but I enjoyed mine the most. Ordering here is kind of chaotic, but just go with it. Hahaha You will get through it with an AMAZING sandwich. We have already made plans to go back. 😂

They don’t have seating outside so be on the lookout for a place you want to go to afterwards to eat them. Or do what most others and we did, eat and walk. Or just stand on the side of the street devouring your sandwich that is as big as your face. 🤤

From there we headed to Piazzale Michelangelo. Be forewarned–It’s a mini hike with lots o stairs…but the expansive views of the city are totally worth it.

There is a church up even higher from the plaza that we walked over to and ended up having a mini photo session at because the doors were just so stinking cute!! The view only got better up there as well. 🙂

Above is the physical manifestation of my inner happiness right now. Lol

Photo shoot. Doors. Views.

…like I said. We had to. 🤷🏽‍♀️

Next Carolyn and Travis (The Newlyweds!) arrived to town and had us and other wedding guests that traveled to Florence over for charcuterie and drinks before we went out for a group dinner. So we met them at their place which has a balcony in the center of a Piazza and a gorgeous church at the end. So cute!

We stopped at a cute little panini and wine shop before walking over to their place and I must tell you about it briefly. The name of the place is Panificio on via della spada. The owners name is Mario and he is a GEM. We just wanted a decent bottle of wine to share and he thought long and hard about his recommendation based on our price range, needed to know what we were eating and what we tend to appreciate in a wine. It was the sweetest thing. He ended up giving us a discount on a good bottle to stay in our price range. Lol Also, he made these pizza sticks we ended up buying that are delicious. Besides that, he gave us tons of advice on a place we should eat, things to avoid, areas worth exploring etc. We will likely be back to grab vino from him purely because he was so genuine and helpful!

After meeting everyone we were off to dinner!

Dinner was at the yummy place called, Club Culinario Toscano D Osvaldo. Tortelli was bomb.com, eggplant parmegana appetizer was also amazing and last we had a Lamb with Ragu sauce that was deliciouso! 🙂

Once we left there we headed for a place called Mayo which is a nightclub/lounge that has a full bar and hookah in the back patio. We danced for a while, had a cocktail and called it a night because half the group was on a tour in the morning. One fun thing about the club was they were really into glow sticks, in the drinks–making people glasses to wear. It was completely childish and fun. Haha

Tomorrow–wine tour in Chianti! 😍