I had been to Florence once before, about 10 years ago. I was traveling with a group of friends who had done a lot of planning in terms of tours and day trips to Tuscany (highly recommend). We saw all the major sights—the Duomo, David, the Uffizi—ate well, and generally had a great time, however I felt I had "done" Florence and didn't really need to go back. In planning our trip last month, Sean had never been and I thought it was worthwhile to see, so we decided to squeeze in a two-night stay before we headed to Puglia. We ended up loving Florence so much, we wished we would have skipped Bologna altogether so we could have more time there. I liked Florence the first time I visited, but this time, I loved it. The light bouncing along the Arno river is gorgeous. The city is very walkable. The food is fantastic (it was my favorite of the entire trip, sorry Bologna). But really, it was the shopping that did it for me. There's so much of it, I decided to devote an entire blog post on where to go. Here are the best places to shop in Florence.
