To celebrate our 20th anniversary, we planned a trip to Florence, Italy! We booked flights and a hotel for a week in Florence, and left the rest of our plans flexible. Diana wanted to see the art and architecture of Florence and felt we could spend at least a week taking in that city alone.
We left on a Saturday, and our travel arrangements scheduled us to go from San Antonio to Newark, where a brief layover would allow us to switch planes and travel to Frankfurt. There we would switch planes again for a short 90-minute flight to Florence.
The adventure began almost immediately as our first flight left San Antonio almost two hours late. This gave us a brief window to make our connection to Frankfurt. The airline looked at alternate flights, but in the end recommended doing our best to make the connection. As our plane prepared for landing in Newark, the flight attendants visited with the few of us with super-tight connections, giving us advice. They asked all the other passengers to allow us to sprint out the doors and to our gate. We hustled and made our plane with five or ten minutes to spare. Then it was a long, long flight to Germany. The Frankfurt airport was confusing, and we were directed back-and-forth a few times. We had to go through passport control and then made it onto our final plane, landing in Florence around 1:30 in the afternoon. Florence is a tiny, regional airport, and we were able to quickly claim our bags and find a taxi to our hotel – deep in the heart of Florence. The small Orto de’ Medici Hotel was delightful, with a helpful staff and a great breakfast buffet.
With some time before dark, we walked around the city a bit. We found the Basilica of San Lorenzo just a few blocks from our hotel, and it’s dome confused us briefly before we found the Duomo not too much further away. We spent some time admiring the exterior of the Duomo and the baptistry before finding dinner and returning to our hotel, exhausted.