Florence day 1: Hotel Lorenzo Il Magnifico

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

Arriving in Florence

After a shorter than expected train trip from Rome we arrived in Florence today.
We did get a little bit confused as to where to go from here though… we actually walked from one side of the station to the other trying to figure out where we were going!  Eventually we found a taxi rank and got a ride to our hotel.
We found this taxi driver was great, in Rome we had a few dodgy drivers claiming that our hotel was at least 20 minutes away by car and they would charge us 25 Euros as a “good deal” – even though our hotel was literally a 2 minute walk away!
So it is important when getting a taxi to work out a rough price before hand so you don’t get a big surprise when you arrive at your destination!

Hotel Lorenzo Il Magnifico – 4 Star Accommodation in Florence

A short drive later and not even 10 Euro, we arrived at Hotel Lorenzo Il Magnifico.
We were a little worried because we had arrived a few hours earlier than the designated check in time, but to our surprise they let us in early!
They even upgraded us to a superior room on the top floor!
We were both still a little tired and run down from our cold we picked up, so we decided to relax in our room for a few hours!

The hotel was a little out of the way from the centre of Florence it about a 15-20 minute walk to get to the major museums and the Duomo…

This photo of Hotel Lorenzo il Magnifico is courtesy of TripAdvisor

Dinner in Florence

We still weren’t sure of when people eat dinner in Italy yet…
Some days it seems like stuff is open around 5-6 o’clock and then some nights nothing is open!  We couldn’t really find anywhere to eat so we just kept walking…
We eventually found a Japanese restaurant that looked nice…
So I opened the door and there was a group of people sitting down eating so I figured it must be open…
But as we walked in we got some dirty looks and turns out they weren’t even open and it was the staff eating dinner!

That’s okay though, we found a great little pizzeria restaurant a few minutes down the road.
Now, I’ve never really liked pasta before but having been in Italy has changed that…
The pasta here is absolutely delicious!
As the entree we both had cannelloni and it was just great!
Finished off with an excellent salmon and caviar pizza.

Delizioso!

A pretty good first day in Florence if I don’t say so myself

Check out more of my travels here.