Firenze at Sunrise

Saturday morning arrived too quickly after Friday night. Guess that's what happens when you're knocked out with cold meds. As promised, Lori got up with me to trek out to watch the sun come up over the city. We headed out in the direction of the Duomo, passing through Piazza della Signoria which was now empty of the performers, artists, and crowds from the night before. Piazza del Duomo wasn't much different and the empty piazza made the majestic building even more impressive while the sunlight started to illuminate the green and white building blocks.

With the sun still rising, we booked it on over to the Arno River to watch the sun from Ponte Vecchio. Although it had been rather impressive the night before with the lights reflecting off the water and the moon in the sky, I'm a sunrise sort of girl and the bridge reflecting back in the water made for an incredible photoshoot while birds flew low along the water. It also made us regret that our running gear had been left at home.

Tummies begging for food, we hoped that some of the coffee bars we had passed on our early walk had finally opened. 8am really isn't that early, especially in a town that was closed up by 11pm. You think that would be an easy task...ha. We finally found a place and booked it back to the apartment, in hopes that water was turned back on. It was! Chalk one up to computer based controls.

The rest of the morning was spent walking around the city, checking out shops, and then setteling into a breeze way for a light lunch and wine. Best part? There were blankets on the chairs which I wrapped myself up in because the heaters just weren't enough. Our waiter, ever so talkative, introduced himself and we introduced ourselves. Well, we tried. By this point of my day, the voice was nearly gone, my head nearly exploding with pressure, and the meds weren't helping. Either he didn't hear me or he didn't care because from that point on I was called Jennifer. By two sips into my wine I didn't even care. I didn't care that the extremely good looking guy changing the propane tank was right there either. The rest of the table sure did though- snapping pictures of "the table" or "Juan the Gnome" when really focusing on him.

Jennifer at this point was done. With a little food in my belly, an apartment key in hand, and the promise to the others I knew where the apartment was (I was the one who found it the night before!) I headed back to crash. And crash I did. 5 hours later I woke up only to decide that the fabulous dinner out was going to take place without me. So, so sad. Luckily they had tracked down star cookies for me that afternoon and I woke up to find them in the kitchen! No. Not quite the same dinner that the others had with their fabulous wine and scrumptious food...but what was the point if I couldn't taste anything?