For those of you paying attention, I had to fly through Philadelphia on my way to Barcelona. It was before the NFC Championship game and before the Super Bowl. I thought, while here, I'd show a little love for the "Birds" by picking up a shirt. They are sporting my favorite color, so why not. Plus, it would be a souvenir from my travels.
Well, I put it on yesterday ahead of the big game. I even went to pick up my dry cleaning and tenant in my apartment building wished me luck. I'm like why? And then I realized it was the shirt.
Well, it was obvious from the start that Eagles came prepared to win. Congratulations to Philadelphia on winning the big one.
The journey home started early. Our driver came to get us at 4 a.m. Florence time. We chuckled as we watched a group of girls staggering home from the "club". We got to the airport and were the first in line to get checked in. Thank goodness I had been upgraded so that we could "skip" the line and get our boarding passes and luggage done first. You see, this was the only airline where we could not get our boarding passes ahead of the flight.
We sat at the airport for a few hours and finally made our way to the gate to board. The Florence airport is small. And, there are now jetways. So, another first on this trip.
Yes, I had to load onto a bus and be driven to the plane where then I had to walk out on the tarmac and up the stairs to my seat. On the bus, a man sat next to me who was from the United States. He had recently retired and spent time in in HR role relocating individuals to Florence, but never spent time there. So, he said he decided to spend 3 months there - which he loved - and was heading home.
Our flight to Madrid was just under 2 hours - and it was smooth. However, it was a budget airline and there was no drink or snack service. My upgraded seat had more leg room than first class flights in the US, however the seats wrecked narrow and the armrests were in a fixed position. OH, and one other thing I noticed on European airlines, the seatbelts were "longer" - which I appreciated. No struggle to get them buckled.
Once in Madrid, we made our way to the International terminal (took about 25 minutes) by train. Once there, we found some food.
None of it look appetizing to me, so a pumpkin spice latte for me and some snacks from the magazine shop and I was good to go. The Nutella "wafers" I got, which I would say were like an Oreo cookie where the filling was Nutella, were great.
Once again, we had to board a bus and be driven to our plane. Let's just say the Spanish are not in a hurry to get you to the plane or let you out of the bus.
We flew Iberia airlines home. Iberia is an American Airlines partner and I will say their business class was essentially the same as American, although their seats near the window staggered a bit differently, which mine being right next to the window and the seats in front and back of me being right on the aisle. The seat seemed smaller than American business class and there was less storage. However, the seat did lie flat, the entertainment was a bit better, and the pillow and blanket were a nice touch.
I settled in, however was still nervous for the flight home. We had learned the day before about the terrible tragedy in D.C. and my crazy fear of flying made this journey particularly difficult. Plus, we would be doing this in the light and I'd be able to see the big body of water I so feared when flying.
By the time we boarded, I was hungry. Meal service didn't start right away, so I broke open my snacks and discovered the best Dorito flavor ever!
We had a little more turbulence on the flight home than we had on the flight coming over. You'll see it in this next video.
Oh, I can't forget the amenity kit.
I thought I might fall asleep on the flight, but once again I did not. So, I kept on eating.
And more.
I have to admit that I did not look at the window all that often on the trip. Why? Because I knew we were flying over water. And mostly frozen water at that. But the times I ddi, I just say it was beautiful.
We landed in Chicago about a half hour early. Great, but we lost all that time just waiting for our baggage. We did get through customs relatively quickly (thank goodness for Global Entry), however the baggage was a bit of a cluster. By this time. I'd been up 24 hours, we had to keep walking back and forth between baggage claim 2 and 9, with the airline finally settling on 2. Oh, and priority bag tags are an absolute scam. My bag was one of the last to come out. Oh well.
It was nice to be home and I continued to stay up until close to my regular bed time. And with that, I was up once during the night for about an hour. I went back to sleep and got up at 5:15 a.m. Chicago time (which is the normal time I get up in the morning) and went about my day like it was any other. I didn't experience jet lag on the return either.
I'm so glad Rachel pushed me to join her in Barcelona. I absolutely loved the trip. For a girl who loves history and art, this trip was truly a dream. And now, I realize what I've been missing by allowing my fear of flying to get the better of me. I think it's time to plan the next trip.
Oh and in case you were wondering, Italy was #1, Spain #2, and France #3.
Day 2 in Florence was all about exploring the city on our own. But first, the Uffizi. Let me just say, this had to be hands down the most overwhelming art experience I've ever had. When you realize that the oldest piece of art in the Uffizi collect dates back to 1200 BC, well you just can't fathom life at that time.
By the way, this is the oldest piece in the collection. It is entitled "432 Cross" and it is by an unknown artist.
The amount of religious-themed art in the collection is also something I did not anticipate. The one thing I noticed throughout the paintings over several hundred years was that baby Jesus was virtually depicted the same way. His head - in almost every painting - was cone-shaped, versus round. An odd thing to pick up, but it was noticeable. Here are more pieces in their collection.
Also, everywhere you looked there was art. The paintings on the ceiling are outstanding.
And you can't miss the view of Florence from inside the Gallery.
Here's more of what we saw:
The views from outside were not bad either.
How these pieces survived thousands of years, war, natural disasters, and more blows my mind.
On the way out of the gallery there was a modern art section and the contrast between what we had observed through most of the gallery and these pieces was mind blowing.
After the museum we headed to lunch as a place recommended to me by a former colleague. And it did not disappoint.
We once again had Ribollita, the vegetable bread soup, and this was even better than the one we had the day before.
While we did not have the Florentine steak, many around us did and it look (and smelled) delicious.
This lamb pappardelle was outstanding.
The tortellini in broth was good (not complaining), but it could not compete with the pappardelle.
And this Tiramisu...there are no words. I will never eat this in America again.
This place was packed. We happened to be seated next to a couple from Florence. However they were on holiday because they currently lived in Singapore where one of them was a professor at the University there. We shared wine, they made some recommendations, and they confirmed for us that my colleague did not steer us wrong in terms of the food recommendations. In fact, the gentleman told us he had been coming to this restaurant for 50 years and the one constant was the quality. He said the quality of the food has never changed. Well, we loved it and it was the best food experience we had in Europe.
After lunch, we stopped in a few shops and headed back to our hotel for a small break before heading out again to find a wine window. Yes, you heard that right. A wine window. You knock on the window, someone comes to the window to take your order and a minute or two later, you have wine. We found the most famous wine window in the city (by accident) and loved it. Rachel didn't love the wine (she is the wine snob), but I loved my Limoncello Spritz.
This experience was also a community experience. You have to finish your drink in front of the wine window (can't walk with it), so we got to know the people there. We met an American from New Jersey who was staying in Florence for a few months to see if he wanted to live there permanently (he had family in Florence). We also watched a couple of professional "influencers" film their entire experience and provide "color commentary" for their viewers. This was a lot of fun!
But, we had more to do and things to see.
One more brief stop at the hotel and then for a wine nightcap. We'd have an early morning flight, so we didn't want to be out late and we'd already had quite a filling lunch. Rachel stumbled upon this place on her early morning run, and we'd passed it many times (just around the corner from the hotel). What better way to end our time in Italy than with a wine tasting.
We had some hard to find wine, we made a few new friends, we met a couple from the Houston, Texas area, and had a light dinner (cheese). This was also a great experience.
We wrapped up our night be taking a walk down to the Ponte Vecchio.
