No wonder it's my favorite place in Italy!

Florence is amazing! I haven't had time to write a travelogue, so I'm jotting down some notes at Milan Airport, using Florence to wrap up my ten-day Italian journey.😀😀😀 When I was in Milan booking a hotel in Florence, I realized that my flight was on the 20th, not the 21st as I had thought. I suddenly felt like I'd missed out because I only had two days and one night in Florence. This trip was very spontaneous; I didn't make a detailed itinerary. After deciding to go, I just thought about where I wanted to visit and which museums and tours needed to be booked in advance. I booked the hotels in Milan and Venice just two days before the trip, so the last stop in Florence had to be shortened.😻😻😻 Reading Xu Zhimo in the past, I felt that his translation of Firenze as "Florence" really fits the image of the city. Like the gemstone jade, you need some accumulation to understand its beauty, and Florence, with its profound heritage, also needs to be understood calmly like jade. Both times I visited were in the colder seasons, and the cold of Florence was vivid. It can only be said that this translation is indeed accurate, elegant, and appropriate.😍😍😍 Two days and one night, but the schedule was quite full. I took the morning train to Florence and arrived around nine. After checking into the hotel, I went for a stroll. I had lunch, drinks, and a chat with a friend. In the afternoon, I joined the tour of the secret passage in the Palazzo Vecchio. For dinner, I went to my favorite restaurant from the last visit. The next morning, I walked to the Florence Cathedral for the 9 a.m. Chinese tour, then climbed the bell tower for a panoramic view. Unfortunately, the dome was not open; otherwise, I would have climbed it too. At 1 p.m., I joined an English tour at the Uffizi Gallery. The tour was too short, so I continued exploring on my own until 5:30 p.m. If I hadn't had to catch the 6:30 p.m. train to Milan, I would have stayed longer because the Uffizi offers night visits every Tuesday.🚶‍♂️🚶‍♂️🚶‍♂️ The highlights of my Florence trip were definitely the secret passage tour at the Palazzo Vecchio and the endless exploration of the Uffizi Gallery. The usually inaccessible secret passages, hidden rooms, and roof structure of the Palazzo Vecchio were all part of the tour. The guide, an art history expert, had a slight Italian accent but gave an excellent and highly interactive tour. I was particularly impressed by the Hall of the Five Hundred. After exploring the roof, she even took me down by elevator. As the largest room in Italy, the Hall of the Five Hundred is a testament to Vasari's talent and ability. The impact was indescribable. What's more, this room is still used for municipal government activities to this day. The existence of the Uffizi Gallery was the main reason I decided to visit Florence for the second time this year. This art museum is truly a place you can never fully explore. With works by Lippi, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Caravaggio, Titian, Tintoretto, and self-portraits of various painting masters, it's a pure delight for someone like me, an amateur art lover. I can't even imagine how happy students of art must be here. #Florence #FlorenceCathedral #UffiziGallery #PalazzoVecchio #FlorenceCathedral #Museum #ArtGallery