Italy

Italy: Florence, Tuscany, and Positano

Best view in Positano!

During our time in Europe, we spent a little over a week in Italy. We started in Florence, then ventured into Tuscany and Positano!

Florence:

Our first stop on our Europe 2022 adventure was Florence. Florence has a very special place in my heart. I did a mini study abroad there with my best friends when we were in our early 20’s and completely fell in love with the beauty of this city. When we started to plan our Europe vacation, I knew I wanted to take Grant to the city I love so much.

We spent two full days in Florence and felt like that was the perfect amount of time. We stayed at Hotel Duomo Firenze, an inexpensive hotel right off of the Duomo. While the hotel itself was nothing to write home about, the location was hard to beat.

Our favorite meal we had in Florence was La Giostra. The resturant was lined with twinkling lights and was beautiful. Our favorite course was the pear raviolis!

We also stopped at All’Antico Vinalio for the tastiest sandwiches in Florence!

Tuscany:

To get from Florence to Tuscany, we rented a car. We were definitely a little apprehensive about renting and driving a car in Europe! While getting outside of Florence was a little questionable (lots of vespas!), once we got into the countryside, we were very happy to have a car.

In Tuscany, we stayed in San Gimignano. We rented an Airbnb that had a resturant on the property, a nice clean room, and a beautiful pool.

Our first night for dinner was within the grounds of San Gimignano at Le Vecchie Mura. This resturant had a beautiful view of Tuscany and the meal itself was great.

For our second day in Tuscany, I reserved a wine tasting tour for my husband and I in the Chianti Region of Tuscany. We had a driver pick us up from our Airbnb and take us to two wine tastings within Chianti. This was a great way to see more of Tuscany and to learn more about their Chianti wines.

Positano:

Our final leg in Italy was in Positano. While both my husband and I have done the Almafi before, this was both of our first times in Positano. We stayed at Covo Dei Saraceni and I would recommend this hotel 100 times over again. It was right at the bottom of Positano, with views that looked over the entire town. This hotel also had two different pool options on the top of the roof. Hanging by the pool, drinking Aperol Spritz and eating pizza was the best way to spend our afternoons!

We had a few wonderful dinners while in Positano. Our two favorites were La Sponda at the Le Sirenuse hotel and Da Vincenzo. For one of our dinners, we also did a cooking class at Positano Home Cooking. This was a unique cooking class, in the sense we definitely did more drinking than cooking. But it definitely was a fun experience and you get to meet other travelers.

We spent the longest amount of time on our trip in Positano (4 whole days). While you can definitely do it in less time, we really loved being able to slow down while in this city. It’s rare we spend two full days relaxing in the sun while on a Europe trip, so Positano was definitely a pleasure!