12-16 May 2024

Much like how we can’t stay anywhere other than Hotel Oceania in Rome and we can’t not go to Siena, for Florence, it’s all about Fiesole and the Pensione Bencista. Nestled in the hills above the big city, Bencistà dates to the 14th century and, just before we were there, was even written up in Vanity Fair Italia — and the article featured the room we were staying in! We found this place through friends from Raleigh who had stayed there for their honeymoon a decade before us, and it’s just a delight, with gorgeous rooms and art and killer views of Firenze. From the hotel, it’s easy to catch bus into Florence or walk up the tiny road into Fiesole.

Our first full day there, we wanted to find things in the city we hadn’t done ten years earlier. First up was a market, where Hampton finally got a new wallet — his one shopping goal of the trip. Besides wine. Then we went looking for the Gucci Gardens, a museum about the famous designer. On our way, Hampton realized there was a cocktail bar (I hadn’t mentioned it), and he insisted we stop and it was a good idea. Although he hasn’t chilled my wine glasses since we got home. Rude.

My biggest goal in Florence was to find one of the operational wine windows. Originally a plague thing, there are a few still in use, and I steered us to one not featured on Stanley Tucci’s show, hoping the line would be shorter. There was definitely a crowd, but the Osteria Belle Donne staff are well accustomed to tourists, and we had lunch there, as well, to appreciate seeing how it worked from inside. Nearby was a recommended vintage shop so I had to stop there, as well, clearly. I managed to only walk out with a light cardigan from the 1980s for just about $15.

The last time we were in Florence, we climbed the belltower beside the big duomo, and figured that was good enough. Then, as we planned our trip, one of my favorite authors, R. Eric Thomas, went to Italy and wrote hilariously in his newsletter about climbing the dome including: “That was 480 steps to the top and isn’t it amazing how much of tourism is just torturing yourself for a photo and a memory? Folks in the tour group were straight up wheezing and clutching their hearts. I am folks!”

So we had to do it. And it was totally worth it.

Also, I thought I might not post much about this trip because I couldn’t do it better than Eric, but he encouraged me, so you’re welcome, people of the internet. Even though it was mainly Instatories since I was paralyzed by the fear of non-disappearing-in-24-hours failure and posted zero to my feed until hawking these posts.

After the duomo climb, we visited a wine/small plates bar recommended by our Tuscan tour driver. Well, he was not wrong about it being good and great neighborhood spot. So much so that we waited for two glasses of wine before a table opened up. Le Volpe e L’Uva was packed and people were settled in for the night — which is a great sign! It’s definitely worth a visit, but be prepared.

The next day, we headed out with a tour to Cinque Terre, five cities sprinkled along the northeastern coastline. It’s as gorgeous as all the photos make it seem, even my poorly composed and un-accounting for light levels iPhone pics. We only spent a short time in each stop and got to see some of the towns only from the water. Our tour recommended that we skip the touristy waterfront restaurants at our last stop to get a takeaway and find our own seats, but we were barely there and after climbing yet another tower, being waited on sounded lovely. Next time! Because we definitely want to go back and have more time to explore more, as well as taking a smaller boat trip instead of a large ferry.

On our way back to Florence, the Australian woman in our group (not the same one from the other Tuscan tour) commented about the insanity of American politics and the older white woman from New England who loves cars and has multiple homes started saying things that were, well, legitimately false. I couldn’t even look at Hampton but on the other side of me was a very well-dressed woman I would guess 10-15 years older? and saw her husband in the row in front of us give her A Look. I couldn’t interpret said look but then she yelled out WE NEED TO NOT TALK ABOUT THIS I AM ON VACATION and that’s when I realized she was not a suburban soccer mom who votes against her own self-interest because she benefits from the patriarchy. Roberta from New Jersey, I salute you. You are a hero to Flat 493 and we sing your praises every chance we get. My deepest apologies for the original stereotype; our giggles and snide comments in the backseat of the van were a highlight of the entire vacation.

We thought our last day was going to be rainy, so once the tour got back and we had dinner, we struck out to find the gelato place one of my best friends’ daughter recommended, even though it meant walking from the bus stop to the hotel in the dark, that way we could just stay around the hotel the next day. Zoë is now older than I was when I hung out at their house and babysat her all the time, and in just a few short years she’s gotten to be better traveled that I am. Which is handy for recommendations like Vivoli. The kid was not wrong; I, too, will now be dreaming about that affogato for years to come. We got to Vivoli shortly before they closed which meant we missed the crazy lines they can sometimes get. Would 100% wait in one of them, however, and I’m not even a big sweets person, it was That Good.

Well, the next day dawned vaguely overcast, but not at all rainy. After breakfast on the pensione terrace, we wandered up into Fiesole. Last time we were there we visited the Etruscan, pre-Roman ruins, so we wanted to see what else we could find. On our way the Monastery of San Francesco, we stopped off a memorial… mainly because it was a hike and it was a nice place to stop. After googling what the heck this memorial was for, we learned of the Martyrs of Fiesole, Italian soldiers who sacrificed themselves to the Germans who were on a rampage after the Allies freed Florence the day before. More here.

We were the only folks exploring the monastery that day, which was very quiet and a little surreal. Heading back down into the town, we stumbled upon the modern cemetery. We ended up spending quite a bit of time in there, enthralled by the walls of names because so many of them had photos and trinkets to go along with them. It was fascinating to see people who lived from the late 1800s through the late 1970s and to think about how much they would have seen, from the invention of flight to the world wars — to disco! Also, wives who outlived their husbands by decades and why did some families choose to memorialize their loved ones with photos of them in their youth versus ones from later in their life. It was a powerful reminder of just how many stories exist in this world and an emotional moment we were not expecting to have.

For dinner that night, Hampton booked us a fancy tasting menu at La Reggia degli Etruschi. Luckily we passed the restaurant on our hike to the monastery so we knew to expect that its much publicized views were because it was up a steep hill. It was definitely An Event with the five courses taking over three hours because while we were the first ones there, the place quickly got packed. It was a wonderful way to close out the trip in a town we love so much.

After a few hours of attempting to sleep, we were up in the middle of the night for the pre-booked transportation to take us to the Florentine airport for an early flight to Madrid and then back to Charlotte. The night before I had emailed the address on our information sheet from Adam with the hotel gate passcode. Well, we get outside and… no driver. We waited a bit and then lugged all of our stuff up the driveway hill to see if they were stuck at the gate on the main road. Nope.

By this time, it’s about 4 a.m. and we are vaguely panicking. I’m far enough away from the hotel and Fiesole is a small enough town that I have very little service. I can’t get a call through to any of the numbers on the info sheet, but manage to pull up their website and get a customer service rep in a chat as we walk back down to the hotel so I can use their wifi to redownload Uber. Long story short, the car company, a large international one headquartered in Germany, canceled our trip because they didn’t have any local drivers. And they didn’t let us know because it was “outside business hours”.

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Meanwhile, Uber can’t find anyone either — small town in the middle of the night, remember? The pensione isn’t staffed overnight, so I couldn’t get them to call or find any sort of cab contact on their front desk, so I desperately googled cab companies and managed to get a dispatcher who couldn’t understand the name of the hotel so I had to hope I said the street address properly. Then it was trudging back up the hill to the gate with all our fingers and toes crossed that a driver would actually appear. We nearly cried when he did. Luckily we were already checked in for our flight and security was a breeze, so we didn’t have to run for a gate or anything, and it was all rather mundane and anticlimatic and our connection through Madrid had plenty of time and was easy. One neat thing about the big transatlantic flights is that the particular model of plane we were on had two-person rows in the back of the plane. Neither of us had to sit beside a stranger or crawl over them to go to the bathroom. Very handy and highly recommended if you can manage it.

And there you have it! Now… where to next??

J/k we totally know and are headed off with Adam’s Travel Designs on a small-group trip to Vietnam in February! Hopefully I’ll check in before then. Arrivederci.