Florence

J and I had both been to Florence before, but not together. We chose it as the destination for an early spring vacation because it was likely to be a little warmer than Paris, but offered a lot of museums in the event that it turned out to be cooler than expected. The flight from Paris to Florence was around 90 minutes. We loved being in Italy in less time than it would take to get from Chicago to New York.

Every morning began with a visit to a little cafe overlooking the Piazza Signoria for a quick cappuccino. Paris has a big coffee culture, but the quality of the average café crème does not come close to any of the cappuccinos we had in Italy. We also tried a variety of Italian wines, both old favorites and some we had not had before.

We spent a lot of time walking around the city and exploring. The weather was a little cool and overcast during the morning, but got sunny and warmer by the middle of the day. J had not made it to the Uffizi Gallery on his previous visit, so we made a stop at that museum while we were in Florence.

One of J’s favorite cocktails is the Negroni, which was invented in Florence. We decided to make it our mission to find and visit the bar where the Negroni was created. We ultimately traced it to Caffè Giacosa (now owned by the Italian designer Roberto Cavalli), a beautiful little bar that serves lunch, snacks, coffees, and cocktails. Drinks there come accompanied by elaborate plates of snacks like toast points with olive tapenade and little tea sandwiches, and they had a whole buffet of chips, nuts, meats, cheeses, and crudités set up on the end of the bar. We ended up going there several times for an aperitif, a light snack, and fabulous people watching.

We had a lot of amazing food; it has inspired me to try cooking more recipes out of the Italian cookbook that I have here in Paris. A few of our favorite spots were Olio & Convivium, Fuori Porta, Pane e Vino, Trattoria Mario, ‘Ino, and Baldovino.