Italy (2026) - Piacere
Day 0 - Of Booking Vacations While on Vacation
Back in 2025, while we were visiting Austria and Prague, our friends Erin and Brian invited us to join them in Italy. We said yes, because of course. Little did we know that in between that trip to Austria and this trip to Italy, we would visit Spain twice for a few days. I didn’t write about those trips because, although they were great, we were there for a specific purpose.
Booking a trip a year in advance has its perks; there's plenty of time to space out expenses. research, and only builds anticipation. So far, the only downside of this trip is missing a wedding.
The plan is to be headquartered in Florence, take day trips to the surrounding cities, and spend a weekend in Venice. Although we’ve been to Florence with Johannes and Raquel, it didn’t matter; Florence is awesome.
In the meantime, as I did for Austria, I decided to try my hand at learning a little bit of Italian. I’ve been using the Babell app, and I hired a private tutor for help. Oddly enough, I’ve found German to be easier to learn than Italian. It’s easier to speak Italian, for sure. But I feel that I remembered more vocabulary outright with German instead of relying so much on my Italian and my Spanish.
We’ll see how it goes.
If this is your first time here, piacere!
Day 1 - Of Planes and Expectations
I’ll make this section quick since it’s not terribly exciting. We flew on ITA Airways, both our flight from Miami to Rome, and then Rome to Florence went very smoothly. As we pulled up to our Airbnb in Florence, Erin, Brian, and Adrian were waiting for us outside - like a bunch of tourists. Turns out they’d only arrived just a few minutes before us.
The flat is very nice, with four bedrooms and two bathrooms. Once we settled, there was a mandatory nap. All of us were kind of exhausted. Even though I’d slept decently well on the plane, that’s never the most restful sleep. I will give a shout out to the TRTL travel pillow. That thing cradled my neck and held it in place while I slept, it was great. I think I would have slept better if I didn’t suffer the curse of always having someone next to me who keeps their TV on at full brightness.
Afterwards, we went out to the city and walked around. Some places looked familiar, but even in the last two weeks, Florence has changed a little. I saw a lot more closed shops, and a couple of restaurants we’ve visited previously were not shuttered. No matter how static you think a city is, it’s constantly changing and moving. We ended up eating at Trattoria La Madia, it was empty when we arrived, but we gave them some grace since it was 6:00 PM after all. Still, the pizzas, gnocchi, Aperol's, and steaks were all great. I love Italy and its food.
I spent close to six months trying to learn some Italian, unfortunately, no one else knows much Italian, and now I feel a little pretentious using it. There’s a measure of discretion I am using so as to not seem like I am trying to show-off. Still, it’s been great speaking full sentences and going back and forth with the people I’ve met so far and speaking in their native language.
I am not sure what tomorrow brings. Erin and Brian have things they want to do, I have a few ideas, but I am enjoying this passing feeling that I am just happy to be here with no expectations.
The week ahead does have some things planned; wine tasting, truffle digging, gnocchi cooking class, Venice trip, Pisa/Lucca trip, wine windows, etc.
Alla prossima! Ciao!
