Sunday got off to a late start but all was well since Florence is also a little slow on Sunday. The crowds are here but several things seem to be closed. We tried to do a cooking class but they didn’t seem to work out with our schedule or what we wanted to eat. So we just planned on having a long lunch and hitting the flea market, food market and perhaps the vendors for a few more trinkets.

We started at the cafe with the extra large cappuccino that Christina likes and then headed out. We walked back to the flea market and once again it was a wasted trip. Everything said it would be open but completely shut down. It didn’t look like it would be open at all in January. In the light of day the neighborhood didn’t look as bad as it did the first night we walked down (by night I mean 5 it gets dark early in Italy). However, nothing really to look at so we were just collecting steps.

From the market we headed back to the train station area to go through the vendor stalls again. Christina wanted to look at a sweater but unlike yesterday we only found one vendor selling it and he would not bargain so we walked away. I bought a few things but with fewer people out the vendors seemed more aggressive and we decided we had enough.

It was time for lunch so we tried the food market. The market area was closed but the food court was open. We were too late, it was a madhouse with people circling like vultures for any open seats. Although things looked delicious we were not up for the craziness and headed back out to search for a restaurant

We checked around the square and found one that looked good and took seats inside. One thing very different in Italy is that they cram tables in everywhere and separate four tops to two with only a few inches between. Our table was against the wall and they pulled out the other two seats and sat another table right beside us. An Italian couple set down and he proceeded to make anything I have ever seen an American do seem like nothing. The tables were not level and rocked quite a bit. He was very bothered with this and proceeded to shake the table like a child. He also kept his chair pushed way out so that people could hardly get around.

Regardless of our obnoxious neighbors the lunch was one of our better. We started with a cheese plate and then split pasta and pizza. We had truffle sauce on our pasta and a vegetable pizza. Both were tasty and went well with our bottle of white. First bottle of the day.

After lunch we wandered a bit more then headed to the Hotel Cavour. We had reservations for drinks at the hotels rooftop terrace. The hotel is just blocks down from the Doumo so the views from the terrace were amazing. We enjoyed our second bottle of white taking in the rooftops of Florence.

Drinks were a little (ok really pricey) so we just had the one bottle and headed out. Even though the sun was setting it was only 5 and a little too early for dinner. We were really close to the apartment but decided that if we went up we would likely not come back down so we set out to find a bar for a few drinks. In Treviso every restaurant was a bar between 5-7 and packed with groups drinking. Not so much in Florence at least not in the touristy areas. So we stopped in one of the restaurants around the duomo and had another bottle of wine. Bottle number 3 if your counting.

The restaurant had a few other tables and the food didn’t look all that good so we headed back towards the hotel Cavour for the ones we had seen earlier. We picked one and got seated right by the hanging side of beef. Christina was not impressed. However. the food was really good. We had bruschetta and a Greek salad. Then Christina had chicken with mushroom sauce and I had pasta with sausage. All this with a bottle of white. Which was bottle four that led to a bottle of Prosecco and dessert.

Maybe the last bottle of Prosecco was one bottle too many. It was a good thing we didn’t have far to go and it was a straight shot back to the apartment. For some reason we found the scaffolding around the duomo very funny and couldn’t quit laughing. We thought it looked like they ran out of materials and installed some Home Depot doors to finish out the work. We texted the photo out to several people so I apologize if you received it. We had much better pictures from the day but somehow this one was worthy to be sent as a text.

Thankfully we made it back to the apartment and quickly called it a night. One more day in Florence until we head out to Orvieto.