Roaming Hearts Podcast
Justice & Hannah Lynn Arceri
✈️ Bucket List Travel Couple on a Budget📍 NOLA
🌎 National Parks | International
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Roaming Hearts Podcast
Italy Travel - Episode 3: Under the Tuscan Sun pt.2
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00:00:00 Justice
Hey, fellow Wanderers, thanks for tuning in to the Roaming Hearts podcast.
00:00:04 Hannah Lynn
Practical tips to fun stories we are your travel buddies, so if you're dreaming of far off places or just looking for your next travel hack, you're in the right spot.
00:00:13 Justice
Check out our website, roamingheartspodcast.com for episode transcripts and travel recommendations.
00:00:19 Hannah Lynn
And don't forget to join the conversation on Instagram for Q&A's tips and tricks and to share your travel tales.
00:00:25 Justice
So pack your bags and join us on this journey Roaming Hearts podcast. Because every adventure begins with a story.
00:00:34 Justice
Welcome back to the Roming Hearts podcast. As always, it's me justice, joined by my lovely bride Hannah Lynn.
00:00:40 Justice
Hey guys. We are continuing with our series on our Italy journey. This one is going to be finishing up with Tuscany. This is our Part 2 of Tuscany. We covered the southernmost parts of Tuscany in the countryside and our.
00:00:53 Justice
Yes.
00:00:54 Justice
Mega tourism O say, and the beautiful town Sienna and Montepulciano and all that. So today we're finishing with the central and northern parts, which is going to be Florence, Pisa. Those are the two really main cities there and that's central to northern part.
00:00:55 Justice
MHM.
00:01:10 Justice
But as we mentioned, you want to cover that real quick on the, you know splitting into two parts. What that really is talking about?
00:01:16 Hannah Lynn
Yes, I think Tuscany as a region kind of does have that natural split because the southern, I guess half of it or the southern part of that region is more rural, it has more agriculture, it has more of that outdoor hill rolling hills just that feel. And then as you go through the central and northern part there.
00:01:37 Hannah Lynn
There are more cities, there's universities and big art galleries, so you could definitely see that distinction in the different parts of the region.
00:01:44 Justice
Yeah. So super excited to talk about the central northern.
00:01:49 Justice
Same as always with the format we're going to just kind of roll through day by day just like an agenda on a on a, on a vacation where you just have this planned out, yes, of what we're talking about each day and then we'll much like a vacation have spontaneous stops where we'll break off and talk about some kind of unique stories, failures, successes.
00:02:08 Justice
Recommendations.
00:02:11 Justice
Any fascinating things that we've come across in this time in Tuscany, so getting right into it, we just departed.
00:02:18 Justice
Like we said, the southern part of Tuscany, it was train travel from here on out. It rented a car briefly there because it was so rural and spread out. What did you think about the train travel overall? Like I know we mentioned a little bit about the strikes in the last episode, but just overall.
00:02:23 Hannah Lynn
Yes.
00:02:33 Justice
Satisfaction.
00:02:34 Justice
You know how easy was it? Why don't you kind of highlight?
00:02:37 Hannah Lynn
Some things there. I really enjoyed it. I mean, I felt like a passenger Princess because you did most of the footwork on that. So you were a little more stressed about it because you were looking at the logistical side. But I thought they were very clean. They were very nice. There was plenty of space and it was very efficient. I mean, they were like running on a time.
00:02:43 Justice
True, true there.
00:02:55 Hannah Lynn
Schedule and I think we'll kind of get into that train strike again because that happened when we were in Pisa. So we'll kind of mention that later. But why don't you tell us about interesting what we found out about kind of the train cars and the tickets and kind of how that works. That was interesting.
00:03:08 Justice
Yeah. So, so it was, you know, really our first.
00:03:13 Justice
Like mainly traveling by train trip, really. Most of them were in cars, but so it was a little unique with trying to find where exactly we're supposed to sit, which cars it didn't have, like a ton of signage. Yeah. And like, getting on the trains. There wasn't like a proceed to this car. It was just sort of like they all had a number. But then there was like.
00:03:26 Hannah Lynn
Yeah, the tickets didn't really say that.
00:03:33 Justice
Six of the same number in a row, so a little goofy. Now grant it the first time we got on it from Rome. We were panicking to get on at.
00:03:35 HL
Yes.
00:03:41 Justice
The right time. We barely made it, yes.
00:03:44 Justice
But no, so just you can always ask people. That was the most successful thing for us. People had a enough patience with the Americans to to.
00:03:53 Hannah Lynn
Oh, so kind, yes.
00:03:54 Justice
Yeah, very kind to to tell us exactly where we need to go and check your ticket in while you're doing that. And so that is a good point though, since I mentioned.
00:04:02 Justice
Checking a ticket.
00:04:02 Justice
In that they didn't always check would your tickets if everybody on the train had a ticket. There was a part of me on the logistical side that was like, could we have like gotten away with this without?
00:04:04 Hannah Lynn
No, they did not.
00:04:14 Justice
Even buying a ticket like I don't, I don't see anybody walking around. But I did look it up. You.
00:04:19 Justice
And not only get fined, but you will be forced to pay for the full price of the ticket. Yeah. And they potentially could just, like, throw you off on the next stop, so not really worth the risk.
00:04:29 Hannah Lynn
Yeah. And I think we talked to some people who said that and I think we kind of saw somebody that that was happening too. They were getting ticketed and we were like, what is going on? Do we have our ticket? Yeah. So I mean, I would for Peace of Mind and get that ticket and they'll come around sometimes. But it seems like on shorter trips it was.
00:04:38 Justice
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:04:50 Hannah Lynn
Kind of. You know, they didn't worry about it as much. Yeah, yeah.
00:04:50 Justice
Yeah, just they didn't really bother.
00:04:54 Justice
But overall, I agree.
00:04:55 Justice
With you clean, very friendly staff. Oh yeah, a lot of times you can go a couple of cars down and find not only restroom, but often like a little bar where you can get some drinks, some snacks so and you know, takes credit card and stuff. So it was I very much enjoyed our time traveling by train. So moving into day one day, one where we arrived in Florence. So that was a train.
00:05:16 Justice
From close to Montepulciano up into Florence.
00:05:18 HL
Hmm.
00:05:20 Hannah Lynn
Beautiful view, by the way. It was a.
00:05:21 Justice
I know it was a great ride. Yeah, a lot of cool tunnels too, which was like a cool pressure effect. Whenever you went to those cause the train was moving pretty quickly.
00:05:22 Hannah Lynn
Beautiful.
00:05:22 HL
Ride.
00:05:26 Justice
Yes.
00:05:30 Justice
Yes. When we arrived the B&B we chose, it was off of Airbnb and it was part of almost like a hotel collection. I remember it wasn't like a specific named person. It was like a almost like a company and.
00:05:35 HL
Yes.
00:05:41 Hannah Lynn
That's true, which was new for us, I don't think.
00:05:45 Hannah Lynn
We had done that before, yeah.
00:05:46 Justice
Yeah, we haven't done that before, but it was a win. I think overall it was the win, but the positioning was great.
00:05:49 HL
Oh my goodness, yes.
00:05:52 Hannah Lynn
Very centrally located, I mean it was really nice. It was a very.
00:05:57 Hannah Lynn
You know very specific feel of Florence. It was, you know, you're in this almost like this loft, and you're looking out over the city. It was just a really cool stone building. And the hustle and bustle of the city. So I really loved that stay.
00:06:13 Justice
Yeah. And one thing about Florence that I think both the Airbnb host and just from our experience, we definitely found out is almost everything can be found by foot.
00:06:24 Hannah Lynn
Yes, absolutely.
00:06:24 Justice
Like there's really there's really not even a metro system in place.
00:06:28 Hannah Lynn
No, I don't think they're. Did we do the scooters?
00:06:29 Justice
There wasn't. Yeah, and.
00:06:31 Justice
Now there's no scooters influence either. Yeah, so it was all by foot, and it was all manageable.
00:06:32 HL
Oh, OK.
00:06:35 Hannah Lynn
It was definitely manageable, yeah.
00:06:36 Justice
And so we were able to walk around everywhere we went. But again, our location of our B&B was like really perfectly placed to where as close to everything, but also a a very short walk to from the train station. Yeah. Which again like when you're coming off a train, you have all these bags and these brick roads and stuff like it's nice to not have.
00:06:38 HL
MHM.
00:06:42 Justice
Yes.
00:06:49 Hannah Lynn
Yes. And now?
00:06:53 Hannah Lynn
To go very far, and that was a nice thing that I think is is really good.
00:06:57 Hannah Lynn
Thinking ahead, if you're on a trip you have.
00:06:59 Hannah Lynn
Think if you have luggage. OK, how am I getting to these places? And so that was a really big key for us, was everywhere we stayed was pretty close to those train stations and they were easy to get to for the most part. And even though it's cobblestone, you're only on it for a block or two. So that was great. Now this Airbnb did have stairs.
00:07:21
Yes.
00:07:21 Hannah Lynn
And pretty it did pretty high. It was like the 3rd or 4th floor.
00:07:24 Justice
And steep.
00:07:25 Hannah Lynn
Yeah. And they were very steep, but getting in, they basically told us, tell us when you arrive and we'll come help you. And they carried our bags up. So that was very, very nice. Yeah.
00:07:34 Justice
Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were very kind. The host, the lady offered to, you know, tell me what you need me to carry. Yes. And so it was like, why am I gonna give you the massive bag? But, you know, you can take my carry on. So that was very nice. The host was extremely helpful at the point of check in, like, there's this moment where they're always, you know, scanning your passport and kind of stuff because you are a foreigner.
00:07:43 Justice
Can.
00:07:49 HL
Yes.
00:07:54 HL
MMM.
00:07:56 Justice
And while she was letting all that kind of scan and print, she pulled out a big map, like one of those pamphlet maps that she would get at an airport or train station, and she just started marking it up and say, like, you need to go here for Gelato, you need to go here for pizza. And this is the best view in the city. And it was like, you know, just coming off of all the recommendations we had from Pam.
00:08:15 Justice
At Poggio, Etrusco was like ohh goodness yes, we struggled again. Like oh, they're telling us what to do. They live here and she had she had moved from California or something like yeah, 10 years before. Right and so.
00:08:27 Hannah Lynn
Well, and I think there were multiple owners or multiple hosts and so one of the guys was from Florence and then she was.
00:08:33 Hannah Lynn
Because I had been living there for almost say, like five years or so from California. And so she kind of had a cool this cool. Like we connected because she was kind of experiencing what we were like. These are the places that I really wanted to see. And I kind of know what you're looking for here. So that was great. And it kind of gave me my bearings of the city. And I know.
00:08:53 Hannah Lynn
I'm always kind of like, alright, where do we turn? Where do we go? But being able to see a map like that, I kind of realize, oh, we're here. We're kind of on this other part and all right. So if we walk up the street, so that was nice to kind of get our.
00:09:05 Hannah Lynn
Trains. And from there we obviously had an itinerary and we had plans, but This is why we always leave some room like leave space in that itinerary to kind of just walk around, go to a coffee shop, go to a cafe and from there we were able to kind of put some of those things in.
00:09:20 Justice
Yeah. And I think the biggest place that that shows is in food recommendations like I think you can you can do as much research as you can.
00:09:24 Hannah Lynn
Yes, absolutely.
00:09:27 Justice
But at the end of the day, it is somewhat subjective to whoever is leaving the reviews or that kind of thing. So when you can have somebody who lives there tell you, hey, this is where the local people go, that's like.
00:09:40 Justice
Exactly what you mean.
00:09:40 Hannah Lynn
And we had even gotten some recommendations from friends who had just gone. We had some friends who had gone previously, I think a year before and then.
00:09:49 Hannah Lynn
We had a friend who had just left. I mean, she was there like the month before us. And so she was really able to give us some great recommendations for food as well. But she's.
00:09:51 Justice
Got back, yeah.
00:09:58 Justice
Yeah, yeah. And we'll get into that in this.
00:09:58 Hannah Lynn
Really helpful.
00:10:00 Hannah Lynn
Yes, which we will share.
00:10:01 Justice
Yes, we will. So I do want to wrap up on the B&B, so talking about like the breakfast they did do breakfast every morning, which was delicious it.
00:10:08
Oh yes, Sir.
00:10:10 Justice
Was fresh. It was.
00:10:10 Hannah Lynn
Yeah, homie.
00:10:11 Justice
Like these big, beautiful pastries and fresh fruit, paninis. Yeah, it was really nice. We'll have the full review on our website, you know, and and the links to to get right to that Airbnb listing. That'll all be there. So really for the first day after we kind of got settled and arrived, we did sort of sleep in that morning.
00:10:20 Hannah Lynn
Of course, yeah. Recommendations.
00:10:32 Justice
Which was nice. After everything we did in Tuscany to kind of like not have to rush out, but.
00:10:34 HL
Yeah.
00:10:37 Justice
So we just kind of cite, did some sightseeing really throughout Florence, which there's a lot to see. It's a beautiful city full of just that Renaissance era. And so, you know, there's the Duomo, the baptistry, and it's crazy when you walk up to those things, just how big?
00:10:40 Hannah Lynn
Mm-hmm.
00:10:54 Justice
They are like.
00:10:55 Hannah Lynn
And they're just in the middle of the street middle. That's what was so crazy to me. We're just walking down the road and I think we were going shopping, which we'll talk about, and we just kind of turned the corner. And it's like, oh, my gosh, this is an amazing just, like, literally in the middle of the square. Yes. Yeah. So that was cool to.
00:10:57 Justice
Of the street.
00:11:09 Justice
They're just massive Dome.
00:11:12 Justice
Say yeah. Yeah, it was crazy.
00:11:14 Justice
So I I just you know.
00:11:16 Justice
That was some of my just I remember fondest memories of, like turning a corner and just like seeing this massive Dome, this massive baptistry, the just the the designs on the front of it with like the carved in statues. And so like, it's really fascinating and beautiful when you start walking around Florence and seeing all the architecture and its beauty.
00:11:36 Justice
Like, it's amazing. So we did just a little sightseeing, a little bit of shopping like you said, I kind of was on a leather tour kick after our time in Tuscany. Just just some background. Like my family has Italian roots that kind of.
00:11:40
Yes.
00:11:45 Hannah Lynn
Yeah.
00:11:46 Hannah Lynn
That was.
00:11:53 Justice
Italian lived in the Bronx, Brooklyn sort of thing, and came down to Louisiana. So it was like that sort of authentic Italian guy vibes. So the thing. And so when I was walking around in Pienza, I noticed there was every other Italian man was walking around with a leather jacket, and I was like, OK, I'm going to be Italian.
00:12:14 Justice
I need a leather jacket.
00:12:15 Hannah Lynn
You are truly inspired. You were like, these are fashion icons. I gotta get a staple jacket.
00:12:15 Justice
And so I was on a mission.
00:12:23 Justice
Yes. And so there was a lot to pick from. There was a lot of.
00:12:25 Justice
Leather stores in Florence.
00:12:28 Justice
We'll definitely in the episode transcript on the website put like the actual place we settled on because I thought it was. It was a little interesting that most of the places you went there was always these St. vendor kind of things going on that and maybe this is just a preference kind of thing. But if you're like.
00:12:44 Justice
Breathing down my neck trying to sell me something, it starts to sort of trigger this like.
00:12:49 Justice
This could possibly be fake, or a scam or.
00:12:51 Hannah Lynn
Yeah. And the authenticity. And that was something I think you were looking for. You did want it to be genuine. You did want it to be real, whereas a lot of times for me, that doesn't matter as much. So I'm like, oh, yeah, well, we'll just get it. It's OK. If it's not real. But this the place that we settled on was very good and their prices were great and negotiate.
00:12:51 Justice
Something like you're you're trying to sell it.
00:13:10 Hannah Lynn
It was really awesome. Yeah, you did a great job with that. It is. It is. It's not as comfortable for me, but yeah.
00:13:11 Justice
Yes, yes. Which which you're a master at, by the way. That's like your family trade as they're able to negotiate and so.
00:13:19 Justice
Yeah, it was. It was pretty funny in Rome. Quick story where it started to rain and like we don't, you know, pack an umbrella. And if you say with you it's like there's too much space taken out. And so we were kind of walking trying to go from like overhang to overhang to stay dry.
00:13:33 Justice
And there was one of those St. vendors who you.
00:13:36 Justice
Know they do.
00:13:37 Justice
Not I don't want to say aggressively, but they do come up to you like trying to sell.
00:13:40 Hannah Lynn
Stuff all the time and so and they all just so happened to have umbrellas. It was like 30 people per block, like here. You want an umbrella? Like where?
00:13:48 Justice
Did these come from? It was kind of like that scene from Christmas with the cranks right at the beginning. We bought chocolate and it's like.
00:13:53 Hannah Lynn
Just saying again.
00:13:53 Justice
It's pouring and
00:13:54 Justice
An umbrella. And so it was a lot like that. But you kind of haggle with him a little bit and you gave him that you.
00:13:59 Hannah Lynn
I did.
00:14:00 Justice
Give him that willingness to leave maneuver.
00:14:01 Hannah Lynn
I got I had that.
00:14:02 Hannah Lynn
Walk away. Power. Maybe I was, you know.
00:14:02 Justice
Yes, you had to walk away. Power. Yeah. And so he he.
00:14:05 Justice
Brought it down.
00:14:05 Justice
Like $5.
00:14:07
It was great.
00:14:09 Justice
So fun. So yeah, we did the same with the leather. We really wanted to find somewhere that was authentic and we had a good price. So we did get that I have.
00:14:15 Justice
An amazing leather jacket and I love it.
00:14:16 Hannah Lynn
Yes, so excited something else I wanted to touch on about Florence, which I thought was really fun was I had watched the Stanley Tucci, his kind of docu series that he made about Italy and all the different.
00:14:28 Hannah Lynn
Pieces and parts that he experienced and he was talking about these little wine windows, so they call him the vino portals and so.
00:14:33 Justice
Yeah.
00:14:35 Hannah Lynn
So those were really cool to see. And apparently if you knock on them wine glass of wine will appear. And so I thought that that was really neat to see it. It has so much history. They're like hundreds of years old. So that was a cool little piece that I was like, wow, this is actually here. Like, I didn't expect to experience.
00:14:53 Justice
I think I vividly remember you being like, that's a that's a wine door. Like I saw Stanley Tucci was like, OK, whatever you say, but it was really cool that they had this just.
00:15:03 Justice
All through the city.
00:15:04 Justice
So yeah, we did some exploring.
00:15:07 Justice
We did finish with a dinner. This was one of those things where, you know, kind of not really by any local recommendation. That was sort of like a researched out. You know, we kept hearing about Florentine.
00:15:18 Justice
Steaks. Yeah, it was.
00:15:19 Hannah Lynn
Like you got to try the Florentine steaks.
00:15:20 Justice
Yeah, it's like the apparently, these massive just delicious rib eye like steaks. And so it was like, alright, we got to try them over here in Florence. And so we found one of these places that, you know, you it it almost was franchise like there was 3.
00:15:33 Hannah Lynn
It did seem like that, yeah.
00:15:33 Justice
Four of them in the city, like the overall atmosphere, was good.
00:15:37 Hannah Lynn
Yeah, they had the meat hanging.
00:15:38 Justice
Yeah, like I definitely when you walk in and you sit down, you're.
00:15:39 Hannah Lynn
They changed.
00:15:41 Justice
Like this is pretty cool.
00:15:44 Justice
Stake wise, you know that was our first experience with the Florentine stake. And so I guess we weren't exactly sure. Like is this it? Is it supposed to be sort of like a very straightforward salt and pepper seasoned thing where from the South like we just, you know, everything's got to have all kinds of, you know uniqueness to it.
00:15:56
Mm-hmm.
00:16:00 Hannah Lynn
And you are our stake master. So this guy is like has a strong steak. And so I think we are like used to phenomenal steaks. We eat steak a lot. And so I think when we kind of tasted that Florentine steak, it was like, OK well.
00:16:15 Hannah Lynn
You know, it's not like the best thing I've ever had, but it was a cool experience, wasn't it?
00:16:19 Justice
It was, yeah. And they brought it out. It was on like a like.
00:16:21 Justice
Almost like a.
00:16:22 Justice
Cast.
00:16:22 Justice
Iron like propped up stand. It was pretty cool and not like we're saying it.
00:16:24 HL
Yeah, good experience.
00:16:27 Justice
Wasn't good. It was.
00:16:28 Hannah Lynn
No, not at all. Yeah.
00:16:28 Justice
It was like it was very like this is this is good, this is you know.
00:16:31 Hannah Lynn
Well, it was, yeah, it was kind of standard and it was quite expensive. And so I think that's kind of why we feel like was that.
00:16:39 Hannah Lynn
Worth it? We think about like La Terrazza of the Michelin star restaurant we went to in Rome, which we dropped a lot of money on, and nothing affairs. It was like the best culinary experience we've ever had. So when you look at those experiences, you say this was worth the money. Whereas when you look at that going for the amount of money.
00:16:44 Justice
Which nothing, nothing compares to right.
00:16:59 Hannah Lynn
We spent, I think we were like we could have done without, but that's personal preference.
00:17:03 Justice
Yeah, it was one of those things like we really.
00:17:04 Justice
Wanted to just like experience, yes.
00:17:06 Justice
State. But we did get another one later on Day 2, which we'll talk about, which was a fantastic experience. And so we finished off.
00:17:10 Hannah Lynn
Oh, amazing, yes.
00:17:14 Justice
A recommendation from our host, she had mentioned that like there's two or three of these, they just opened up one right nearby and this was our, I think our best Gelato experience. We pretty much had Gelato in every.
00:17:27 Hannah Lynn
City and every single.
00:17:28 Hannah Lynn
Day.
00:17:28 Justice
And just about something, you're right. You're right. I was trying to be modest, but.
00:17:32 Justice
So this one I thought was the best.
00:17:34 Justice
And because it was so unique, the flavors were very different. Like it wasn't just your lemon and your pistachio. It was like these very multiple fusions of flavors.
00:17:35
Yes.
00:17:37 Hannah Lynn
Very sad.
00:17:45 Justice
So why don't you kind of mention a little?
00:17:46 Hannah Lynn
Bit about that. Yeah. So that was last orbital area and that was in the Piazza St. Maria Novella. And so it was really cool. We grabbed our Gelato and then went out into the Piazza and just kind of experienced that. But the flavors, they were really, really special.
00:18:04 Justice
Now.
00:18:04 Hannah Lynn
We I think we got one of the chocolate ones. It was like a double chocolate.
00:18:08 Hannah Lynn
Extremely rich in cream, I.
00:18:11 Hannah Lynn
Mean it was really good, yes.
00:18:12 Justice
Very creamy. That's what I never almost was like. Kind of like that modern ice cream like that sort of very creamy, but it was still had that Gelato sort of flavor to it. It was just.
00:18:22
And.
00:18:24 Justice
The best I think of the entire trip, so if you have a chance and you're, like looking around for.
00:18:29 Justice
Gelato in Florence. You have to give this place a chance. You're missing out if you don't really. And so. And it was very cute, too. I remember it was like this. It was very new. Like she said they.
00:18:38 Justice
Just opened this one.
00:18:39 Justice
Not crowded at all. No, it wasn't. It was like, I guess so. New and such. Kind of tucked around a corner that not many people knew about it.
00:18:41
Send.
00:18:45 Hannah Lynn
It was kind of hard to find. I know we had pulled it up I think on Google Maps and Apple Maps and the address the pinpoint was like in the middle of the road around the corner, I think so I think so.
00:18:56 Justice
I think that was cause of its newness. I think it was kind of it wasn't really pulling out like you would expect it to, but.
00:19:02 Justice
I remember it was like if you know, if you're like listening that's trying to find it. It was across from one of those kind of like ATM.
00:19:11 Justice
Drug, pharmacy, things they have all those in Italy, it's kind of kind of cool, but it was across from one of those, but it was.
00:19:19 Justice
Man, I just, you know, talking about it kind of makes me want.
00:19:22 Justice
Just.
00:19:23 Justice
Find out if we can make Gelato like tonight.
00:19:27 Hannah Lynn
Well, they had a lot of really good fruit flavors. Like you said, that fruit fusion and then they had of course chocolate and vanilla. And what is it, Donatella? Yes, that was a really delicious one, which is kind of that traditional Italian Gelato. But they also had the Cayenne, didn't they have?
00:19:43 Justice
They did, which that word always kind of sparks the, you know, we're in Louisiana. So if you throw the word cayenne out.
00:19:43 Hannah Lynn
You tried that one.
00:19:47 Hannah Lynn
Yeah.
00:19:49 Justice
We're kind of like, oh, what's what's?
00:19:50 Justice
That about, yeah.
00:19:51 Hannah Lynn
You are like, what's that about?
00:19:52 Justice
Yeah, like I gotta try your kite. So it was good. It had a little bit of a almost kind of a spice to it, which you wouldn't think that would go too well with, like an ice cream or Gelato.
00:20:01 Justice
Little bit, no, it was delicious. I liked it. We went back. It was so good. We went back multiple times to this, to this one because it was basically steps from our RB because RB was right next to the Piazza. So yeah, we frequented the place. We were. We got the the membership cards or something it was.
00:20:03 Hannah Lynn
Yeah, you did enjoy that.
00:20:07 Hannah Lynn
Multiple times, yes.
00:20:21 Justice
Great. So that wrapped up.
00:20:22 Hannah Lynn
Day one. Yes. So moving on into day two was kind of our tour day. Yes. So we were really excited.
00:20:29 Hannah Lynn
We started with lunch. This was a very interesting spot. Why don't you tell us about this? It was like pizza by.
00:20:36 Justice
The pound? Yes. And it was a complete spontaneous stuff. Like you said, we we had tours and the first tour I think wasn't scheduled till about 2:00 PM and so we were sort of like all right, so where we going to eat lunch? We kind of wanted to be in that direction.
00:20:51 Justice
A little bit. We don't wanna walk the opposite way. And so we found this place and it was called gustarium and I'm sure.
00:20:57 Justice
Pronounce it.
00:20:59 Justice
Firenze, which is how you pronounce Florence. And so this place you buy pizza by the pound. And what we mean by that is you literally you pointed out, which was like a little.
00:21:09 Hannah Lynn
What you wanted? Yeah. They had, like, 15 choices of different pizzas, but it was thick. It was not. It wasn't like a regular pizza.
00:21:12 Justice
Yes.
00:21:15 Justice
It was almost like a deep dish. If you took a deep dish. Yeah. Out. And then, like, cut it into big square slices. Yeah.
00:21:22 Justice
And so they would take whatever 345 different slices you wanted and he would put it on a scale.
00:21:28 Justice
And that's how he determined and it.
00:21:29 Hannah Lynn
And it was not expensive.
00:21:31 Justice
Yeah. And it wasn't like a rip off like you'd think like ohh, it's this big deep dish pizza and he's putting on a scale cause he can sell it for more like it was.
00:21:37 Justice
A very airy light, yes.
00:21:41 Justice
Dough. So it wasn't like these heavy, greasy pieces of pizza.
00:21:44 Hannah Lynn
I think we started with like 3 pieces and then we went back for more. Of course, the pieces weren't like an actual pizza. They were little squares, almost like a lemon square, but a little taller.
00:21:44 Justice
It was, and it was.
00:21:47 Justice
We did, we absolutely went back.
00:21:55 Hannah Lynn
Yum. Thank goodness it was so good. They had an eggplant, one with fresh mozzarella and all those flavors.
00:22:00 Justice
Yeah.
00:22:02 Justice
And the guy working it was one of those people that I'm pretty sure probably owned it like he was so friendly. He he had this thing with you where it was like he walked out and you were sort of asking, I guess, like you speak English kind of thing. And he was like, he spoke like, 6 languages. He started listening all the languages he spoke. And I was like, oh, man, this guy is pretty cool.
00:22:20 Hannah Lynn
Because he had asked.
00:22:21 Hannah Lynn
Me.
00:22:22 Hannah Lynn
Like, what do you speak? And I was telling him like, I can speak a little Italian. Do you speak English? You know, I wanted to be respectful and and then I said, what do you know, do you speak? And he just started rattling off. He was like, what do you want? Italian. English. Spanish. German. I was like, hey, dude.
00:22:44 Hannah Lynn
That fun? Very cool. Yeah.
00:22:44 Justice
It was like he was a he was a great, great employee, great owner, whatever he was, he was he was fantastic at what he did and he, you know, he comes and delivers it to you. Yes, after he cuts it all with one of those big old pizza cutter kind of thing. So a tremendous experience, a great line.
00:22:49 Hannah Lynn
Yeah.
00:22:49 Hannah Lynn
Really wonderful.
00:22:59 Justice
Which hole in the wall wouldn't have never sort of expected unless we literally walked right by. It had sort of an outdoor seating and it was like indoor, but the doors were wide open. You can people watch. Yeah. And so, yeah, definitely. It'll be on the.
00:23:09 Hannah Lynn
It's almost like a cafe feel.
00:23:13 Justice
again and that was close.
00:23:15 Hannah Lynn
To Uffizzi, right. Very close.
00:23:16 Hannah Lynn
Yeah. And that's where we went first, which we.
00:23:16 Justice
Yes, very close.
00:23:19 Hannah Lynn
You got a tour from get your guide, another phenomenal one that we booked. I mean, it was like, wow, that was a big score. So we did the Masterpiece tour, and that was a really great tour.
00:23:23 Justice
Score.
00:23:29 Hannah Lynn
They I just enjoy learning that history and seeing kind of the background that maybe you would necessarily know or pick up on. And so that was a really, really cool one. They really highlighted the meta cheese influence on Florence and really Italy at the time. But that was kind of that Renaissance.
00:23:37
Mm-hmm.
00:23:45 Justice
Yes.
00:23:50 Hannah Lynn
Where they invested so much of their time, resources, money into building this.
00:23:56 Hannah Lynn
Up and with that, can you power struggles and greed and corruption? But there are some really great things that did.
00:24:06 Hannah Lynn
Come from that.
00:24:07 Justice
They did have this pretty cool nugget where they were talking about how the media cheese built as part of the Uffizi gallery. It was like a underground tunnel that took it from the Uffizi Gallary to the Ponte Vecchio Bridge, which is you can see it from the window.
00:24:25 Justice
And so that was one point where we stopped and we were in the second floor and we're looking out at the Ponte Vecchio bridge, which if you don't know anything about the Ponte Vecchio, it was the only standing bridge during World War 2, right? They pretty much blew up every other bridge. And that was the last one. And it's like this beautiful, like, almost double Decker Bridge. It has shops that are all selling, like, very expensive jewelry.
00:24:35 Hannah Lynn
Everything else? Yeah.
00:24:45 Hannah Lynn
And that was the thing the Medicis, they almost, you know, they.
00:24:49 Hannah Lynn
I don't want to say forced it to be, but they kind of had that regulation that this was only high end jewelry that could be sold there. And then was it the meta cheese that would walk along the top?
00:25:00 Justice
Yeah, that, that's something they had, like, a tunnel that was secretly ran into the fence gallery. So they would walk back and forth.
00:25:00 Hannah Lynn
Because the top layer, yeah.
00:25:06 Justice
Between those two, but it was above.
00:25:08 Hannah Lynn
It was above the bridge. It wasn't tunnel. Seems like under again.
00:25:08 Justice
Yeah, yeah. Say, tunnel. Like it was, it was covered. Yeah, that's all I meant. But yeah. No, it was cool to get those little details. And you're right. Like, the tour itself again. It's another one of those places.
00:25:20 Justice
Where?
00:25:21 Justice
It's insanely large, like there's so many things you can see, you could literally stop every step and look to your left to your right, to your front, to your back and see just another piece of art. And so the masterpiece tour was very nice because the tour guide specifically kind of targeted those masterpieces.
00:25:29 Hannah Lynn
Oh my goodness. Yeah.
00:25:40 Justice
And then towards the end of it.
00:25:42 Justice
Didn't just say, OK, now you gotta go like we finished the tour.
00:25:45 Justice
Was like, yeah, spend as much time as you want. Go back and catch anything you wanted to see that maybe we walked by or. And I think she hung around for a while too. If, like, we had questions about something, we went and saw and then came back to her. She was kind of hanging out in the little gift shop area. But.
00:26:02 Justice
Yeah, really fascinating stuff. So many beautiful masterpieces. I know you're definitely.
00:26:09 Justice
A big fan of art and so you can probably speak to more of some of those masterpieces and what you'll see in the feces gallery.
00:26:11 Hannah Lynn
Yes.
00:26:17 Hannah Lynn
Absolutely. So we did with the Masterpiece Tour, they kind of gave us. She gave us the highlights. And so we saw Botticelli and it was incredible. His, you know, the Primavera spring and as well as the birth of Venus have been.
00:26:33 Hannah Lynn
Just like a love for from me for years. I mean, I remember seeing them as a kid and being like, that's the most beautiful painting I've ever seen. Like just gorgeous. Yeah. Has really struck my interest. So that was so special. And getting to walk up and seeing the size, that was something I didn't really realize was how large those paintings were.
00:26:52
Wall.
00:26:52 Justice
Also wall mass.
00:26:53 Hannah Lynn
To wall.
00:26:54 Hannah Lynn
Yes. And again getting a tour, getting kind of that inside scoop with all the like drama with the Primavera that there was, you know, apparently like a scandal going on. And so he painted a different woman in it. That wasn't the original woman who was supposed to because they were having a scandal or something.
00:27:14 Hannah Lynn
So that was just interesting.
00:27:16 Justice
Those are the things that really.
00:27:19 Justice
Like bring an extra piece.
00:27:22 Justice
Art like it's, you know, one thing. Sometimes I'm looking at. I'm like, it's beautiful. It's this painting that's like hundreds and hundreds of years old. And it's just like masterfully done. But then all sudden, you hear this story about just like a vivid detail. Like when we talked about in the Sistine Chapel, like the guy he put in the bottom corner, who, like, told him there's too much nudity.
00:27:38 Hannah Lynn
Yes.
00:27:41 Hannah Lynn
Ah.
00:27:42 Justice
You made him look like.
00:27:42 Justice
A donkey.
00:27:43 Justice
That's those kinds of things you're like, wow, like.
00:27:46 Justice
They put so much of themselves and their story into each painting. It's like, you know.
00:27:48 Hannah Lynn
They really do, yeah.
00:27:51 Hannah Lynn
And it makes it comes to life for you. You know, you kind of see it and you go oh, wow. And I'm picking out these details and I can kind of see how they painted it in this way that the body language. Now I'm kind of seeing that they're they're turned away from that person because there was some bad blood there or something. So that was very, very special.
00:27:53 Justice
Yeah.
00:28:09 Hannah Lynn
And I mean, so many things were special there, but a really cool piece that I didn't realize was they had Michelangelo's only freestanding painting. So it's only panel painting that is in existence. And so that's the Doni tondo. And that was, I mean, gorgeous. And if you look at it, this was before the.
00:28:30 Hannah Lynn
He did the Sistene Chapel and if you look at it, it really reminds me of some of those paintings that you see. You can see his style really developed there.
00:28:38 Justice
Yes. Yeah. And like you said, there was more.
00:28:42 Justice
I feel like every time we're going to talk about Michelangelo, there's he's like the Chuck Norris of Art. Like there's it's like these crazy stories. And so the story with this one that the tour guide told us was that he was doing this painting. He was commissioned to do this painting by a, you know, a fairly wealthy person. Like, he said he didn't do the Sistine Chapel.
00:28:44 Hannah Lynn
Oh yes. He's so yeah.
00:29:02 Justice
Just yet. But he did have masterpieces already out there like the Pieta and stuff. So he had popularity and he was, you know, a pretty penny to Commission a painting or a sculpture from and so.
00:29:15 Justice
This individual, you know, came to him and was, like, almost like the agreement wasn't quite settled on how much it would be. He just commissioned him to do the painting. And so it was to celebrate either it was it or his anniversary or his. I think it's kind of unknown if it was about his anniversary or his son's baptism. And so when Michelangelo finished.
00:29:36 Justice
He wanted the individual wanted to only pay like 40. What's the what's the name of?
00:29:42 Justice
The currency.
00:29:43 Justice
Two counts. Yeah. And so Michelangelo's, like, no, I want 70. Like, this is. Have you seen this thing? Like, it's great and so.
00:29:52 Justice
He was insulted almost by how much he.
00:29:54 Justice
Said only 40.
00:29:55 Hannah Lynn
Well, the price started at 70 and the guy kind of lowballed him and said forty. Yeah. And so then he said, well, no.
00:30:00 Hannah Lynn
Now it's a hundred, yeah.
00:30:03 Justice
You don't play that game, OK? It's 100 now. And so I think. And our tour had mentioned that there was a moment where he almost sort of like threatened to just take it to market cuz.
00:30:11 Justice
He's like Michelangelo, like.
00:30:14 Justice
I can go say it's a hundred out in the market and sell it in 5 minutes like it'll be sold so, but it's your child's Baptist thing. So like you may.
00:30:20 Hannah Lynn
Exactly, yeah.
00:30:21 Justice
Want to get a hold of it?
00:30:23 Justice
And so the.
00:30:24 Justice
So did they go higher than that? Yeah.
00:30:26 Hannah Lynn
Ohh, they went higher. They he I think he ended up selling it for like 145 DuPont.
00:30:30 Hannah Lynn
So doubled the original.
00:30:32 Justice
Maybe you're related to Michelangelo with that that, that, that, that ability to negotiate?
00:30:34 Hannah Lynn
Maybe that's why I've got that. I love it. I love it. And that last masterpiece that we saw, that was the sculpture, which was really neat. It was a call back to the Vatican, and that was the the sculpture of the priest Leucon and his sons. And they were being attacked by serpents. And it's this really emotional and it's a really powerful.
00:30:54 Hannah Lynn
Peace and we had seen it back at the Vatican. And I remember there was a huge crowd around it and I just kind of stood there and kind of took it in for a second.
00:31:02 Hannah Lynn
And then when we saw it at the office, I'm like, wait a second. That's the same thing. And that was right before we left our tour and our tour guide said this is actually the original. And I'm like, why they didn't tell me that. And so that was the original sculpture. And then one of the sculptures.
00:31:14 Justice
I know.
00:31:20 Hannah Lynn
Students, sculptors, students. Sorry. They went on to make the second piece that went to the Vatican. So it was that was a really cool kind of interesting callback as well for us, yeah.
00:31:32 Justice
Yeah, yeah. And again, just so fascinating to hear the the stories behind these pieces.
00:31:39 Justice
It's just crazy, just like a little piece of history. Literally, in this carved out stone. And you're like, wow, just hearing about it.
00:31:44 Hannah Lynn
Yeah, which I, I don't even understand how they do that from stuff, but I that is that was a highlight with the with this tour was she gave us all those pieces and she's like, I'm not trying to rush you. Ohh, but there was something interesting. You were not allowed to take pictures in the hall.
00:32:02 Hannah Lynn
Do you remember that of the ceiling? And so I remember, I, like, tried to sneak a video and I was like, I'm way too nervous to do that because they were patrolling. And like, you weren't allowed to just directly in the hallways. I don't even think they wanted you to stop necessarily.
00:32:02 Justice
Yeah.
00:32:09
Yeah.
00:32:16 Justice
Yeah, well, they had, like benches and stuff off to the side. So I think they were mainly trying to keep people from stopping in the middle. Like, yeah, there was this interesting rule about taking photos in the hallways. But like everywhere else where all the masterpieces where?
00:32:25
Hmm.
00:32:28 Hannah Lynn
It was like totally fine.
00:32:29 Justice
Campers everywhere. Yeah. So that was that was really interesting. Yeah.
00:32:31 Hannah Lynn
I know that was interesting. Yeah, but I really enjoyed being able to after our tour, she kind of released us, and I know we mentioned that at Vatican that we were like, we were kind of hoping to kind of explore on our own. But after being in there, it's like, goodness gracious, you can't. You got to stay with that tour guide and kind of see those highlights.
00:32:51 Hannah Lynn
Whereas for Uffizi, it's much smaller, it is a much smaller gallery. It's high energy.
00:32:54 Justice
Yeah, I said. It was large at the front end of it, but like.
00:32:58 Justice
In comparison to the Vatican? No way. Yeah. Yeah, not.
00:32:58 Hannah Lynn
Oh yeah.
00:33:01 Justice
Even close, but.
00:33:03 Justice
Yeah, definitely. I agree that it was very enjoyable to go back and you know, ohh, we kind of like skirted by that, but we wanted to stick with the tour. Let's just walk back over and see it. And so that was a nice benefit of that. And she gave us more recommendations of, like, food and Gelato as well.
00:33:19 Justice
And.
00:33:19 Hannah Lynn
She gave us some really good ones and she swore us.
00:33:22 Justice
She did so we will not read.
00:33:23 Hannah Lynn
She was like I do not want you to post these. These are our local favorites. And like, if they become like a tourist location, I'm coming after you. We were like, OK. Yes, ma'am.
00:33:25 Justice
Correct.
00:33:31 Justice
She's going to track down your prop.
00:33:35 Justice
Yeah. So I do want to kind of move forward. And so after you.
00:33:40 Justice
We did go over to academia.
00:33:41 Hannah Lynn
Oh.
00:33:42 Justice
Yes. And again another score with get your guide, it's like a priority entry ticket will link both the Office gallery and the Academia booking links from get your guide on this post on our web.
00:33:45 HL
Of course. Yeah. Really great.
00:33:52 Hannah Lynn
MHM.
00:33:56 Justice
Site for this episode, and so this one again it was, you know, like as a priority entry. So we got right in there. We got there at a very good time like I feel like it was like fourish o'clock nobody was really in there. And then I remember as we were leaving it was crazy, it was it was wild.
00:34:12 Hannah Lynn
Which is something that we learned from. Get your guide and from previous research was like go early in the morning, which I think is what we did with Uffizi. We went a little earlier and with this one we were like, oh gosh, it was kind of the only tour we got the time, but it really worked out. It really did. And and and then of course you turned the corner.
00:34:32 Hannah Lynn
And boom.
00:34:34 Justice
David.
00:34:34 Hannah Lynn
The David statue and all his. It was amazing, yes.
00:34:35 Justice
David in.
00:34:36 Justice
Of.
00:34:36 Justice
Glory.
00:34:38 Justice
It was and like I said, it was nice that there wasn't like this big crowd at the time because.
00:34:43
It's you're able.
00:34:43 Justice
To pretty easily get right up close to it. Take the pictures you want with it and then just sort of back up and experience it and it's, you know, you you read about it, you see pictures of it and then you stand in front of it and you're just like, how on Earth did this man make a statue this.
00:35:02 Justice
Detailed this perfect.
00:35:04 Justice
Just incredible.
00:35:06 Hannah Lynn
And so large that was something that really struck me. It was beautifully crafted. And you're seeing the stone is so smooth. You're looking at the toes and the veins in the foot and it it looks like skin. But I I did not realize the scale. I don't think I I think.
00:35:23 Hannah Lynn
When I thought.
00:35:24 Hannah Lynn
About it, I thought it was more like a life-size, maybe a little larger than.
00:35:27 Hannah Lynn
Average.
00:35:28 Hannah Lynn
It was mass, and of course it's on this super big pedestal, so it's way above our heads, but I.
00:35:33 Hannah Lynn
Mean just the sheer.
00:35:34 Justice
It's like up in the ceiling, yeah.
00:35:34 Hannah Lynn
Size of it. Yes, it was humongous and just really just incredible. Great experience.
00:35:40 Justice
Yeah. And you mentioned skin and this popped to me, it's an interesting fact about those marble statues we found out.
00:35:46
Mm-hmm.
00:35:48 Justice
That.
00:35:49 Justice
Most of them, if not all of them, actually did have paint, skin and hair color and clothing and all that stuff. They would have had like work colors. They were painted, but it's just cause it's marble. It's not like the best material to have paint on. So just overtime just wears off. And so now you just see the original marble, but there was one in the academia.
00:35:54 HL
Yes, I'm so glad you brought that up.
00:35:57 HL
Yes, they were.
00:36:04 Hannah Lynn
It just wore off, yeah.
00:36:10 Justice
In this section where they had a bunch of marble statues that had the.
00:36:13 Justice
Yes, and it was kind of creepy looking cause it was just the eyes that were left there was like, whoa. But.
00:36:16 Hannah Lynn
Yeah. We're like, what is that?
00:36:19 Justice
That was crazy to me that all these marble statues at one point had skin color.
00:36:23 Justice
And stuff. It was wild.
00:36:24 Hannah Lynn
Well, and what was really interesting is that I have never heard that. I'm like, why and I've been to lots of museums and, you know, have studied a lot of art. And so I'm thinking, wow, I have never heard this. No one has ever told me this. And that was that kind of opened up a whole new.
00:36:27 Justice
Me neither.
00:36:39 Hannah Lynn
More. Yeah, to seeing art in a different way, especially sculptures. And one of my other favorite things in the academia was the sculpture rooms. I think there were two main rooms that were just filled. I mean, floor to ceiling and shelves upon shelves upon shelves of bust.
00:36:48 Justice
Yes.
00:36:55 Justice
Yes.
00:36:59 Hannah Lynn
Of full body sculptures of animals and people. It was, and they were all incredible. Yeah. And I'm thinking, wow, like, this is a huge collection.
00:37:11 Justice
It was, you know, it kind of when we first walked in, it made me think like.
00:37:15 Justice
Of one of those, because they weren't all done by the same person. Yeah, but like, when you first walk in, you think, like, this is some weird mad scientists laboratory kind of thing where it's just like the walls are covered with faces and stuff. But it was really, really cool to see all the details, all the different individuals. They were sculpted of. And like, you get a little bit of.
00:37:23 Hannah Lynn
Yes, yes, yeah.
00:37:36 Justice
You know, certain ones had little pieces of history of who they were. If they were like certain popes or certain centurions or all these different things in history, and so.
00:37:38 Hannah Lynn
MHM.
00:37:45 Justice
Really. Really.
00:37:45 Hannah Lynn
When certain popes were sculpted in an armchair, so it was like an armchair was also there, and I just amazing. It was really a just a great experience and something also about the academia was their gift shop. I know this is kind of silly, but I really liked that gift shop. They had some very high quality pieces you could buy, of course, like those.
00:37:53
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:38:01 Justice
I did, yeah.
00:38:07 Hannah Lynn
Coffee table books that have the great photos of.
00:38:10 Hannah Lynn
Dart great tote bag. It just seemed like very current souvenirs, I guess.
00:38:16 Justice
Yeah, I would say, you know where you Uffizi was definitely about the experience of the art and the Vatican. Same way kind of like what you're seeing is what it was about. Like, I feel like academia was a lot smaller. First off, it was only like just five or six rooms attached to each other. But the gifts and sort of the.
00:38:28 Hannah Lynn
MM.
00:38:35 Justice
Personal experience that you get seemed to be maybe a higher priority or a bigger emphasis for them and.
00:38:41 Justice
So yeah, the gift shop was good. Obviously. There's like a fascination with just like the David statue is everywhere, like every piece of gift. There's like, underwears and boxes. Yeah.
00:38:47 Hannah Lynn
Yeah. I just.
00:38:51 Justice
And everything just has him on.
00:38:54 Justice
Yeah, we know everybody's here. So that was kind of funny.
00:38:57 Justice
Yeah. Yeah. And so wrapping up, we're still on day 2, but wrapping up day 2 after the academia, we did take a a brief kind of walking tour through what's called the Giardino Bardini Gardens, which led to this big hill that overlooked all Florence, which was beautiful.
00:39:10 Justice
Yes, yes.
00:39:15 Justice
I think at this point, if I can remember on our trip, we were a little exhausted from just doing 2 museums and the same be.
00:39:19 Hannah Lynn
MHM.
00:39:21 Justice
A lot of walking and.
00:39:22 Justice
It was a it was a long walk. Yeah, it was like one of those kind of back and forth upwards paths that took you all the way out there, but beautiful. It was like a Botanical Garden on the way up.
00:39:29 Hannah Lynn
And that and that view at the top that was worth it, it was very beautiful because Florence.
00:39:34
Yeah.
00:39:36 Hannah Lynn
Is a beautiful city. It's got all of that red brick, that red stone, especially on the roof. So that was very cool to see from almost like a bird.
00:39:40
Yes.
00:39:44 Hannah Lynn
'S eye view. I did love that.
00:39:45 Justice
Yes. Yeah, no, I I agree. And so the view from the top did have a cafe. We weren't like starving. So we didn't really bother eating at the cafe, but it looked delicious and you know, obviously sipping A cappuccino at the top of the hill would be fun. I did invent.
00:39:54
Yeah.
00:39:59 Justice
My new travel game on the way down, which we'll talk about more in Pisa, so I'll save it for now. That that's that's I want to mention that that was the birth place of. It was on that. But anyway, so we finished Day 2 with a dinner at a restaurant. The one you mentioned earlier. That was one that was suggested by friends who got back about a year before.
00:40:10 HL
Ohh my gosh.
00:40:22 Justice
That the experience was the primary goal of this place, and it was the food was delicious. And we'll talk about the food we got, but the experience was crazy. And so this place is called iltani. Hard to find on.
00:40:35 Justice
A.
00:40:35 Justice
Map hard to find on a website.
00:40:36 Hannah Lynn
Yes, it's almost like this underground family run restaurant and they want to keep it that way. So it was, it was kind of like a hard thing to find. And if our friends had not told us about it, we would have never known.
00:40:43 Justice
Yes.
00:40:48 Justice
Never would have.
00:40:49 Justice
Y'all I had to book it through an e-mail.
00:40:52 Justice
Like I had to e-mail the owner. Like I want a reservation here and they were. And this is the fascinating part. They're only open at 7:00 and 9:00 PM. So you either get a reservation for 7:00 or 9:00. So at that point, if you're in one of those two groups and we had the 7:00. Yeah. So we had a 7:00 reservation. Everybody walks up at like, 63645.
00:41:00 Hannah Lynn
M.
00:41:13 Justice
Sort of forms this muddle huddle line. It's not really organized.
00:41:15 Hannah Lynn
It was not a line. Everyone was just standing in a crowd facing the door, and everyone's kind of looking around. Like, are you? Are you here for this? Like, are we are we? Is this right? Like there's no line. We're just standing in this groove.
00:41:23 Justice
Seven o'clock 7:00 you're all 7:00.
00:41:27 Justice
And so you can see and like you said, it's family run. You can see all these different family members and all these different people setting up tables and just preparing it for you, these big windows you can see inside the whole restaurant. And so they're preparing it for.
00:41:39 Justice
You and getting it ready and then right at 7:00 they one lady comes out with the clipboard. She opens the door and.
00:41:45 Hannah Lynn
Yep.
00:41:46 Hannah Lynn
She starts calling names.
00:41:46 Justice
So you just.
00:41:47 Justice
Walk. No, no. You walk up. And so it's like that's where the line all of a sudden it's like almost like taking off in an airplane like everybody all of a sudden rushed to the line. And so you walk up and you gave your name, and then they just turned around and just, you know.
00:41:55 HL
Oh my goodness, that's about it.
00:41:59 Justice
Sorry.
00:42:00 Justice
OK. Go ahead. Go ahead. And so they would just pair you with your waiter, like your waiter would walk you to your table. He'd sit you down and give you the menus. He'd, you know, walk him to the restaurant. I don't know if he took drink orders at that moment, but just a fascinating experience. It was just crazy. And so it's like good business strategy. You're filled at 7:00, and then you turned around at 9:00.
00:42:03 Hannah Lynn
Yeah.
00:42:18 HL
It was packed out.
00:42:20 Justice
Was walking out and all the 9:00 was right there, ready to to just roll in. So they were booked, every table all the time they.
00:42:22 Hannah Lynn
Yeah.
00:42:27 Hannah Lynn
All the time and it was a lifestyle.
00:42:29 Hannah Lynn
For them, I mean, they loved it and it was kind of that table side experience. They explained every choice of meat that they had, every choice of wine, and it was, it was really inexperience. And you could tell they were very knowledgeable but also really loved what they did.
00:42:45 Justice
Yeah, yeah. They had a lot of humor involved. Really kind of connecting with you.
00:42:50 Justice
As a customer, the food was great. We did like the family meal they had. I think they had splits of like family meal for two or family meal for four.
00:42:59 Justice
And so we went with the two. It was too much food for two still.
00:43:02 Hannah Lynn
It was, yeah, it.
00:43:03 Justice
Was a lot.
00:43:03 Justice
Of food. Not super expensive either, like I remember it being like very affordable for as much food as they brought us in these large portions.
00:43:07 Hannah Lynn
Yeah.
00:43:10 Justice
Did get another Florentine steak. And So what? This family meal was, is basically they just.
00:43:14 Justice
They just came out with, you know, salad number one. Yeah, as soon as you finished salad. They came out with, like, soup number one. As soon as you finish soup. They came out with, like, appetizer, #3. And they just kept coming and coming. And then sometimes they would come when.
00:43:23 Hannah Lynn
Yes.
00:43:27 Justice
Still slowing down a little bit working on the thing and they're like alright well.
00:43:29
Here.
00:43:30 Justice
Here's the next one here.
00:43:31 Justice
Like I'm working on this one and it was.
00:43:32 Hannah Lynn
All right. Let me stand up and move.
00:43:35 Hannah Lynn
And remember that barley, rice.
00:43:37 Justice
Yeah, that what was that about it? Delicious.
00:43:38 Hannah Lynn
That was so good. I have never had anything like that and it was very bizarre. I remember seeing it on the menu as one of the sides, and you can't do any substitutions. It was like it is as it comes. And so I was like, that would be interesting. It was so good. It was almost like a cracked, cracked barley that was turned. It was.
00:43:58 Hannah Lynn
Rice and it just had this fresh taste and it was salted to perfection and.
00:44:03 Hannah Lynn
I remember us walking away.
00:44:05
That was the best.
00:44:06 Hannah Lynn
Rice type thing I've ever had so random to have in that place, but it was so good.
00:44:07 Justice
Yeah, it was, yeah.
00:44:11 Justice
Yeah. And so that experience is.
00:44:12 Hannah Lynn
It's kind of like everything was like that, like specialty.
00:44:14 Justice
Yeah. Yes, very specialty, very unique, the Florentine steak.
00:44:18 Justice
Better than the place we went to before. Definitely got that Florentine steak experience from that restaurant, and it was just all around.
00:44:18 Hannah Lynn
Oh, absolutely, yeah.
00:44:26 Justice
Just.
00:44:26 Justice
A very worthy investment to to find that place to go to that place. So 10 out of 10 recommend we'll have it on the website in this episode. So we're going to go ahead, move ahead to day three. And so day three was our day trip to.
00:44:39 Justice
He's and so a lot of times like you think of pizza.
00:44:44 Justice
And you think, what do you think of when you think of prison?
00:44:46 Hannah Lynn
Well, of course, the leaning tower.
00:44:48 Justice
Yeah, the leaning tower of Pisa, and if that's what you think about, you're right. That's what's there. That's it. It's it's this college town. Yes. And so there's this leaning tower that's pretty much surrounded by these colleges and these schools.
00:44:52 Hannah Lynn
That's it.
00:45:04 Hannah Lynn
And these little cafes, that was something I had no clue until we got there. University of Pisa is there and it truly is like this regular college town and boom. And the center is.
00:45:16 Hannah Lynn
The the.
00:45:16 Justice
It was almost like it was the colleges. Quad was the the the tower feather. It was like this big lawn they had. They had an adjacent like Big Baptistry building. But the Pisa, the leaning tower, Pisa and the baptistry and this beautiful green lawn was essentially the quad for this college. Their hangout spot. And we could tell like we got there early enough to where I guess everybody was still in class.
00:45:19 Hannah Lynn
Yeah, it really.
00:45:31 Hannah Lynn
Yeah, they're hangout.
00:45:37 Justice
That day.
00:45:39 Justice
But shortly after touring some things, all of a sudden, just like a flood of local young people just started. Like, I think before that, everybody was almost nervous to get on the grass. Like all the all the tourists were kind of like, I don't know if we're supposed to walk on the grass. Everybody's trying to find space to take their photo, and then all of a sudden, all the young people shut up and everybody just walking on the grass.
00:45:46 Hannah Lynn
Yeah.
00:45:51 Hannah Lynn
Yeah, no one knew if we could. Yeah.
00:45:54 Hannah Lynn
Because it's. Yeah, it's beautiful.
00:46:00 Justice
It's like, OK, we don't have the whole time.
00:46:03 Hannah Lynn
And people were like, playing soccer and playing games, having picnics. So it was very nice. I mean, pizza, I think I would have planned it for maybe half a day. I think we kind of have planned had it planned for a whole day.
00:46:05 Justice
Yeah.
00:46:13 Justice
Yeah.
00:46:16 Justice
So we did and we ended up kind of cornering ourselves because there was the train strike that day. So even if we wanted to half day it, we couldn't have because we essentially had to wait on the train strike to finish that afternoon. It wasn't till about like 5:00 by the time it finished so.
00:46:29 Justice
You know.
00:46:30 Hannah Lynn
And they had told us, I think it was 2 days in advance. We found out about the train strike. And so we looked at our ticket and our ticket was during the IT was like 12 hours, I think. And so we pushed it back and when we got to the train station, it got pushed back even further. So we were waiting there maybe like an hour and a half.
00:46:49 Hannah Lynn
And everyone. And so we most of us just got on the train and sat.
00:46:51 Justice
Yeah. So like quick tip, I guess if you are experiencing the train strike and you are traveling that day, don't panic. Yeah, it was very like our phones were both dying. So there was a little bit of panic inducing, but.
00:47:03 HL
That was nerve racking.
00:47:06 Justice
They when they say they're going to open up, they are like all of a sudden, literally the doors on the train to open at that point. So if that was your train, we just kind of got on it and sat on it and there was no workers on it. And then like, a little bit of a delay.
00:47:15 Hannah Lynn
Yeah.
00:47:16 Hannah Lynn
Well, and I think we were kind of nervous. Like, what if they go early because it kept being these delays. So really I think we should have left and gone to a cafe just kind of enjoyed some time. Yeah, but we at that point we were tired and.
00:47:29 Hannah Lynn
Just nervous we had never experienced that on our own, so, but it is very common. We actually met a girl who went to university in Pisa and she was so sweet. We had a language barrier, but we really tried to communicate. She was just precious and she told us it happens all the time.
00:47:35 Justice
Yes.
00:47:45 Justice
Like at least three times a month. Yeah. Yeah. And she let us charge our phones, too. She had a cord and she let us charge our phones, which was.
00:47:47 Hannah Lynn
She was like, oh, this is.
00:47:49 HL
That's right. Yeah. She had a charger.
00:47:51 Justice
Like such a blessing, yes.
00:47:54 Justice
I don't know.
00:47:54 Hannah Lynn
We were nervous. We were both at like 2%, yeah.
00:47:56 Justice
Yeah. And it was like, I don't know where we're going once we get on this train.
00:47:56 Hannah Lynn
Yeah.
00:48:00 Justice
So anyway, so Pisa you go there for the tower. So we're going to give you a couple tips, I guess to to to make that as most enjoyable as possible because it is like you're there. You probably can wrap up your photos if you're just like wanting to take your classic hold up the piece of tower, it could be done like 5 minutes. But there is an enjoyment.
00:48:20 Justice
That you can have in one taking these photos and two observing these photos. So in terms of taking it.
00:48:27 Justice
I think it was your idea to you started looking.
00:48:29 Hannah Lynn
Up. Yeah, I looked up some interesting poses. I just thought it would be so fun. Of course. What holds it up? But what are some cool things? Because what I had heard about Pisa and what I definitely agree with is you have to see it one time.
00:48:41 Hannah Lynn
In your life.
00:48:41 Hannah Lynn
Yeah. And do you have to see it again after that? Maybe not. But you've got to see it that once and I totally hold.
00:48:47 Hannah Lynn
That I think it was an incredible thing to say it, yeah.
00:48:49 Justice
It's very fascinating because it does, it does look like it's about to fall over. And so it's like, very interesting how it's not. It's like you think it's like on a slight, but then you get there and it's like way. So it's like, wow, that's crazy. So, but yeah, and so.
00:48:53 Hannah Lynn
Yeah, truly.
00:48:59 Hannah Lynn
Oh, it's yeah. Leaning big time, yeah.
00:49:04 Justice
All of a sudden we're having just the time of our life. Like we can't even like control ourselves. There's making.
00:49:10 Hannah Lynn
I know we're.
00:49:11
Fools of ourselves.
00:49:11 Hannah Lynn
And we're trying to get the angle. So I'm like laying on the ground trying to get underneath. So justice looks like he's kicking it or holding it.
00:49:16 Justice
Yeah.
00:49:17 Hannah Lynn
Up, you know.
00:49:18 Hannah Lynn
Yeah. We had a blast. That was so fun.
00:49:18 Justice
And so.
00:49:19 Justice
We had a we had a big blast taking the photos, but then like you, get this feeling of like man, we probably look like dummy right now like this is so silly looking, but you just like we never see these people again. Let's just do it. And so that's the part too.
00:49:33 Justice
After you take your photos and you've been silly for a few minutes, taking these fun photos, it was fun to try to replicate a lot of the creative ones we saw, and then I highly suggest you step back and you spend at least like 10-15 minutes just witnessing people try to do their poses. And because it's so hilarious.
00:49:54 Justice
Because to them, like even just the basic one of, like, everyone's holding up the tower.
00:50:00 Justice
To them, they look on target from their angle with the cameraman, but all of a sudden you're like 10.
00:50:04 Justice
Feet over to the right, these people are.
00:50:05 Hannah Lynn
And.
00:50:05 Justice
Just holding their hands up in the air, they look like they're a marachi band. They're just like doing this. And you're like, that's so funny looking.
00:50:11 Justice
And so everyone's just hundreds of people.
00:50:12 Hannah Lynn
And everyone is doing it and they don't care where they are. They will stop in the middle of the walkway. I mean, you'll.
00:50:17 Hannah Lynn
Just be walking in there like.
00:50:21 Hannah Lynn
It was. It was so fun and not in like a mean, rude way, but it was just we were like weird those people too. So that was just a real fun experience.
00:50:28 Justice
Just authentic people watching at its finest. And so, as I mentioned earlier, I birthed this game of it was called selfies with strangers. You know, I don't I don't know how privacy wise if it was OK, but I was just walking around pretending to take photos of the tower of Pisa but secretly having it on selfie mode and just taking selfies of all these people.
00:50:31 Hannah Lynn
Yes.
00:50:43 Hannah Lynn
Yeah.
00:50:48 Justice
Like in these poses, nobody knows. Nobody even thinks twice of it.
00:50:49 Hannah Lynn
Yes.
00:50:51 Hannah Lynn
In the background, yeah.
00:50:53 Hannah Lynn
That was fun.
00:50:53 Justice
And so I had, like, I probably filled my phone storage on this trip with after that point to, like everywhere we went where there was popular, I was. But I was really just taking selfies with people. And I had a blast. And I do it, like everywhere we go. Now that gets my thing. And so that was birthed in Florence, but it was it exploded in Pisa.
00:51:04 Hannah Lynn
Yes, it was so fun. Yeah, yeah.
00:51:13 Hannah Lynn
Yes, especially.
00:51:13 Justice
And so that was a grand car.
00:51:15 Justice
Yes. And so after pizza, once we return from the, you got something you want to say? Yeah, yeah.
00:51:20 Hannah Lynn
Yeah, well, for pizza, I really recommend going to the top of the tower. Yes, that was something I guess I didn't really know that you could book ahead. And so we got there and how they do it is you book a time slot. Yeah. And so you can get a certain amount of tickets for a certain amount of time.
00:51:39 Hannah Lynn
Time. But you also have to get in line because they can only allow so many people up because of the weight that the tower can hold, the amount of capacity and the stairwells are very narrow. They're very steep, so it was a hard climb. It really was. But there are some sites you can.
00:51:55 Justice
It was.
00:51:59 Hannah Lynn
Kind of step out and take a break on certain levels.
00:52:01 Justice
Well, you also get the benefit of it leaning. It's like a blessing and a curse, cause it's like for 1/2 of the tower, it's incredibly steep. Even more steep, you're going against the lean. And then all of a sudden, you turn the corner and it feels like you.
00:52:12 Justice
Crawling like you're getting acceleration upstairs and.
00:52:14 Hannah Lynn
Yes, that was a.
00:52:16 Hannah Lynn
Very odd feeling. I'm glad you brought that up because you almost felt propelled up the stairs. Yeah, it was a I had never experienced that before, but you're right. Cause it was like, oh, my goodness. I can't go any further. And then you made you made that round.
00:52:18
Yes.
00:52:30 Justice
And you started falling ahead.
00:52:31 Hannah Lynn
Yeah. And then it was like, whoa, this is so easy. So that was cool. And then the view from the top was just beautiful. I mean, just really needing to see there were bells. And you see this bird's eye view and you get to see the tourists down at the bottom. So that was cool. And down at the very base.
00:52:34 Justice
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:52:51 Hannah Lynn
Of it, they have some pictures and some articles that you can read about the construction.
00:52:56 Justice
Because it is hollow in the center.
00:52:57 Hannah Lynn
Yes. And so you you see that and I was there an elevator.
00:53:02 Justice
Nope.
00:53:03 Hannah Lynn
No, no elevator. There was some kind of clear glass that kind of showed. Maybe the inside of the structure and it it wasn't supposed to be.
00:53:04 Justice
And I love it.
00:53:12 Hannah Lynn
That way it was supposed to be a straight tower and so it kind of talks about why it is leaning and how OK it is still stable. We can still allow people inside but.
00:53:14 Justice
Yeah.
00:53:22 Justice
Imagine being like the the descendant of the person and like the engineer person at the time who built it. And like everybody, mocked him right away like you got this leaning tower and like his descendants layer like everybody goes and sees my Papa's tower because it's leaning he was like.
00:53:30 Hannah Lynn
Yeah.
00:53:37 Hannah Lynn
Gee, exactly.
00:53:38 Justice
Yeah. And so that was kind of fun.
00:53:39 Hannah Lynn
And they also had the baptistry.
00:53:42 Hannah Lynn
You know next to the tower, which was beautiful from the outside, it was right there on the.
00:53:46 Hannah Lynn
Us and we did do the tour inside. It was very simple. I wouldn't say that it's a must see, but it was beautiful and they had a courtyard like almost like a columned gallery around their courtyard. And that was beautiful. There were all these frescoes of Bible stories around it. And I think there was like a cemetery.
00:53:51 Justice
Right.
00:54:07 Hannah Lynn
On the side of it as well, and it was really, it was neat. It was something I had never heard of and.
00:54:10 Justice
Yeah.
00:54:12 Hannah Lynn
Never expected.
00:54:12 Justice
Yeah. And it was one of those things we just sort of picked up because we were looking.
00:54:15 Justice
To kill some time because of the train strikes, we're like, alright, what else?
00:54:18 Justice
What to do here? And so we did do a little quick walking tour and it was like, wow, this was like a nice little nice little nugget we found here.
00:54:24 Hannah Lynn
And I think one of one of the the best parts really was sitting on the grass. I would recommend having a picnic, going to pick something up. We went to a little pizza shop that we found, but we had gotten some some glass bottle drinks and just drank on the the grass and it was just really nice. The weather was perfect.
00:54:43 Hannah Lynn
We I think we took a nap in the shade of the tower like, yeah, it was.
00:54:44 Justice
We did. We just fell asleep.
00:54:47 Hannah Lynn
Was.
00:54:47 Hannah Lynn
Very piece. Like I said, there were kids playing soccer.
00:54:50 Hannah Lynn
And it was just a really sweet environment. Yeah, so that was great. I think Pisa overall, of course, you got to see it once in your lifetime. Yeah.
00:54:58 Justice
Yeah. And it is. We didn't go this route, but it is on the way to the coast. If you wanted to go see the coast, you could go through Pisa and we were considering that at a point so you could include that as well to make 1/2 day visa.
00:55:03 Hannah Lynn
Yes. And we did consider that.
00:55:11 Justice
Perhaps, but yeah, so that.
00:55:13 Justice
That is all three days that we spent in the central northern part of Tuscany, which included Florence and Pisa. We'll wrap with that and so on the next episode, we're going to be moving into Milan. We did a full day trip into Venice, which was really awesome. And so we'll be covering that in the next episode. We're so thrilled that you tuned in again.
00:55:34 Justice
We hope that you enjoyed this episode. As always, go to the website Roaming Hearts Podcast.
00:55:34 Hannah Lynn
Yes.
00:55:39 Justice
Dot com you can see the full transcript. We'll have these links that we talked to. There's a lot of links today that we'll have in there. We'll have some photos of some things we were describing.
00:55:47 Hannah Lynn
Well, we have those travel recommendation pages and so it kind of explains each city. Some of our favorite tips and tricks as well as restaurant recommendations stay like our Airbnb. Get your guide tickets so that that's a great place to go. And we also do travel consultations. So why don't you tell?
00:56:03 Justice
We do.
00:56:04 Justice
Us about that absolutely. So our travel consultations.
00:56:07 Justice
Is a service that we offer. We're very passionate about this and So what we do is we'll sit down, have a meeting with you after you fill out a questionnaire.
00:56:16 Justice
And submit it and so we'll have a virtual meeting and we essentially just want to get like, what's your priorities? What's your, what's your vision? What's your dream of this vacation you're trying to? And then we take all the the work and the stress out of it for you. So we're going to, we're going to take those ideas. We're going to take those priorities that you have and we're going to go work on finding the.
00:56:36 Justice
Best options to meet those needs, and we're going to come back to you with an itinerary that has all the links you need to book all those things. Yes. And so it makes vacations and trips just so much easier to have it all planned out. We love have.
00:56:50 Justice
Our little Google slide itineraries and so we'll put all that together for you and bring it back to you so that you can take the the pain of planning. Yeah, out of a vacation that a lot of people I think experience we happen to love that part of the trip. But yeah. So that's the service we offer on the website go to travel consultations, fill out the questionnaire. So excited to to help people.
00:57:02 Hannah Lynn
Yes.
00:57:10 HL
Yes, that's like a highlight for us.
00:57:11 Justice
Make their dreams become reality with vacations. And so we're just super stoked about that.
00:57:16 Hannah Lynn
And of course you guys can join us on Instagram. Join that conversation there. We have some great tips and tricks and just really like engaging with you guys. So that's always there. And so that wraps us up for today. We appreciate you guys.
00:57:29 Hannah Lynn
Tuning in and we will see you at.
00:57:32 Justice
At the next stop.
