2. Florence & Italian Opera 

Day 1. Friday. 5/22/26 

Travel Day 

Went to work (Last Day of School)

Went to pack (1 hour, didn’t start till then. Living life on the edge) 

Went to airport 

Went to Italy 

This is a good kind of day 

Check out these backing cubes. Carry on only -- no checked bags. Felt like I packed light. Could have packed less. You know Jason's best travel advise: "Lay out all of your clothes and money, then talk half the clothes and double the money!"

Day 2. Saturday. 5/23/26 

Florence Day 1 

Arrived in Florence after about 16 hours of travel. Airport and Train Station easy to navigate. Travel Tip: If it makes logistical sense for accommodations to be near (not on top of) the train station and still have good access to where you want to be on foot, do it! It makes the trip in/out so much easier. Thankfully, many cities are already designed this way. But a 15-minute walk with luggage/out for coffee/to get to the thing is significantly nicer than a 30-minute trek. This isn’t rucking, Brian. 

Checking in. We found our apartment from our friend Fabrizio who recommended his friend Leonardo who hosts multiple properties. Pro tip: find a guy, pay ‘em cash and save 15- 40% of what you would pay to go through AirBNB, Booking.com, etc. Leo communicated clearly via text. Leo was great. Additionally, this is what it looks (IG reel) like checking in to your apartment in Europe. This is what we did in most of our accommodations! 

Pro Tip: Just because it’s nice weather outside doesn’t mean you should open the windows. We opened our windows because it was hot inside and so nice outside. Went to sleep. We woke up to realizing we had been feasted upon by Italian Mosquitoes. You know how when we travel we are excited by different cuisine? And overeat significantly to get our fill? Well, Italian mosquitoes feel the same way about our American hamburger blood. 

Should I nap on day 1?  Some people say you should sleep on the plane and force yourself to stay awake to help recalibrate your body to the 6-hour time change so you can sleep better and avoid jet lag. I get that, and sometimes I agree. Also, I haven’t slept in 26 hours, and I’m exhausted and feel like death, so I’m going to sleep for a bit and feel better, okay? Bethany and I have felt so much better about our travels since we started taking Arrival Naps. 

First Meal: Ribolotta. Very, very thick soup. Beans, spinach, kale, tomato, and lots of stale bread. While I think this is traditionally more of a Fall dish, I would eat this every day. I first had this when my mom made it when she last returned from Italy. I remember thinking how hearty, warm, and filling it was. It’s easy to make and almost entirely veggies. Find a recipe from a Nonna online and make it. I’m drooling all over this keyboard.

Day 3. Sunday. 5/24/26 

Florence Day 2

Regular Bike Tour. Took one through Florence city center, which really isn’t that big and is quite compact compared to a city like Paris. We took a regular bike tour through the city. It is a super efficient way to get around and see a lot. We highly value paying someone to help us appreciate and learn in our experiences. We joke that we are paying someone to take us around and point and say “hey, look at that. That matters”. We joke, but that’s a tour. (🎶 “that’s amoreeeee”)

Wine Windows. There’s like 100+ of these all over Florence. What’s a wine window? Well. It’s a window through which you serve wine. Knock on the window’s door or ring the bell. You are greeted with a “Prego,” and you make your request. Rosso (red), Bianco (white), or an easy cocktail (“Hugo” is my and Bethany’s European Favorite.) Sometimes they have a chalkboard menu posted. Otherwise, you can ask the mysterious hole what they have to offer. Why wine windows? Fast, efficient, avoids having to have square footage (meterage) of real estate to maintain with limited seating. You stand around or grab a seat in the area and sip and enjoy. Ring/knock to return your glass. Some places offer plastic cups to go if you want to sip your Chianti Classico from a dixie cup. 

Piazza Santa Croce. So old. Construction begins in 1294. It’s a Christian basilica, constructed/desinged by a Jewish architect; thus the Star of David at the top. Our guide pointed out this simple sign of respect between faiths. 

Dante. Lots of history of Dante. Dante is hard to read like Shakespeare. If I’m stuck in a doctor’s office between reading Dante and the ingredients on a packet of crackers, I’d have to think about it. 

Florence Duomo. Next to Sagrada Familia (and surpassing Notre Dame), this is the most incredible church structure I’ve ever seen. No picture can capture the absolute magnitude of this thing. Talk about faith — the architect made his design, and they got started building…even though they didn’t have the technology or plan to actually make the dome on top! He knew he (and everyone working on the project) was going to die before it was done — pass it on to the next generation to figure it out. My understanding is that to this day, we still don’t fully understand “how they did it” — how they constructed the dome! While all the tourists ogle the front, we ogled the back. Just as impressive. The bell tower was built later. What a sight. Again, these pictures don’t do justice. The DOORS are like the size of a semitruck on its side. The Doors! Oh, and there’s the casual baptistry just across from it that is bigger than our house. 

The Medici Family (who built/made/fuled Florence) Crest is famous and familiar with it’s 7 dots. If you see it on a building (usually exterior corner 2nd story), they lived there or owned it. 

Piazza San Lorenzo. One of the coolest churches because it’s not elaborately decorated. 

Ponte Vecchio (Old port/bridge) has been around since. Famously, the butchers used to work in these tiny houses on the bridge. But the government didn’t like that because it literally stank, as they poured their butcher yuck into the Arno River, so they ran them out and replaced them with jewelry shops. Naturally. 

Lunch somewhere our guide recommended. 6 tables on the terrace. I had Lasagna (incredible and somehow not all that heavy (take that, Stoufers!) and Bethany had a fresh pesto risotto. House Wine here was gross. We played house wine roulette throughout the trip. Sometimes it was absolutely stunning, delicious, good-quality wine! Places that care about their wine and the experience do that. (Just like in the states). Some places it was not good and cheap and bad (just like in the states). Not a lot of middle of the road. 

Unfizi Gallery - The Lodge. These gals be chillin here since 12 centry? 2nd century? I can’t remember, but it was absurd how old they were and how little their face wrinkled. Also featured, a stunning statue of Medusa’s head as been cut off by Perseus. And a little easter egg we learned on the tour: the artist carved his self-portrait (quite cleverly) into the back of Perseus’s head. That was wild. Felt very surrealist. Way ahead of his time. 

Casual Night at the Florence Opera House: “Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino”. We arrive in Florence specifically for this centerpiece experience. We saw Verdi’s “Un ballo in Maschera” (A Masquerade Ball), and we absolutely had a ball! This was one of the more enjoyable performances of any genre I’ve attended in a while. It was just so well done and niche! Opera in 3 acts, 3 hours long, a 30-minute interval (break) after Act 2. All in Italian, and thankfully there were supertitles in English above the stage. Without these, we would be so (so) lost. 

Me: I’m so excited to see an authentic Italian Opera in Florence, Italy!

Stage: [Curtain rises. A giant American flag projection covers the stage, half the size of a football field]

Bethany and I exchange looks that say: “What in the world? We can’t escape.” 

This opera was beautifully, artistically, (and strangely) staged to take place in America in the 60s, with the main character portrayed as President JFK, who, spoiler alert, dies. He sings through his entire death sequence. (In the original story it’s the Duke of Sweden (?).) The show opened in the Oval Office, then naturally took us to a speech where Martin Luther King Junior is the sorceress, Sybil, and predicts JFK's death. Then the KKK briefly make an appearance on stage. (Bethany and I still can’t figure that one out.) Brilliantly staged how there were many scenes with almost no set, and then the last scene, 50 people appeared at the Masquerade (1960s sockhop?) wearing Uncle Sam and Mickey Mouse masks (super unnerving) and full patriotic regalia — complete with cowboy hats and American Flag cheerleader uniforms and pompoms. 

The set was colossal and had a full 20-stair staircase (Lincoln Memorial for MLKJ Speech setting), a huge oval office, an impressive “backstage” of the oval office, and frequent uses of projections throughout the show that are hard to describe in words. 

It took me about 48 hours to process various things about the opera. The main takeaway was realizing/remembering that Opera often seeks to exaggerate ideas/themes/settings. So originally, I wasn’t sure If is should be offended by the almost comedic stereotypes of Americans and Americana tropes, but then I realized that’s the point. We need clear and strong markers of where we are and what’s going on. It’s part of dramatizing the story. I look forward to our next opera in Barcelona! 

The hall looked extremely modern, like it was built in the last 10 years. I got us seats up close, a few rows behind the orchestra — incredible acoustics in the space. The music alone didn’t move me, but the mise en scène (Total art all combined) did.