As we are finally leaving Florence, it is time for a slightly more intimate look at the bed & breakfast we stayed in for the 3 nights we were there.
I highly (highly) recommend staying at Floralia if you go to Florence. Not only is it extremely reasonably priced for the center of town (~80-90euros/double), but the owners are this super sweet Italian brother and sister team.
Sabino (doesn’t live there but) arrives when he knows guests are checking in or out to give them the tour, the keys, take the money, etc. Really friendly. Really generous. Hooked us up with a dinner reservation.
Silvia lives in the apartment and does all the cleaning, cooking, etc. She is sooo cute. Waiting until we leave and then vacuuming or washing sheets with her music on loudly. And so so sweet. Really made an effort to help Angela find a wedding dress.
For, yes, it is just an apartment.
I don’t understand the floor plan AT ALL. At least how it works with the neighboring apartment units. So I won’t try to explain it.
It’s up (I think) 2 floors. When you walk in there is a tiny tiny little entryway right ahead of you with a short hallway to the right. When you are standing in that hallway, the kitchen, dining area, living room, one bathroom and Silvia’s bedroom are to your left. The other (shared) bathroom and 4 bedrooms are to the right.
There are 3 double rooms available (one with a private bathroom) and 1 single room. When we stayed there, all the rooms were filled with wedding guests – so at least we were sharing the bathroom with people we know …
The decor is SUPER cheery. Yellows everywhere, flowers and happy happy bright colors.
Breakfast at 8a. Continental breakfast set up for us with hot water and coffee, cereal. Good good stuff.
KITCHEN:
P.S. The yogurts are labeled in Italian and it took a couple days for us to figure out what ‘Frutta di Bosco‘ was
The “living area” was I think just a futon and a desk with a computer. There was a TV in the kitchen/dining area (which we kind of half watched for the weather) … . and even though we had no real reason to, it was nice to be able to check our email at least once that week. Sometimes (especially on a whirlwind European vacation) you just need some downtime, right?
LIVING AREA:
Image below shooting from the kitchen, into the living room, and the dark area just past it is the hallway and laundry room (which actually opens up to the sky, I think).
As I mentioned, we shared the bathroom with other guests. We kind of had to schedule morning showers over a couple hours. …. which was totally fine and not at all inconvenient.
What was slightly odd is that the shower …. well, the tub was a full size tub (like any of you have in your bathroom), but the shower curtain only covered 1/2 the tub.
Weird.
You can see in the image below, how the shower curtain literally cut off half the tub space. It was just kind of unexpected.
The window opens into the laundry room (pictured above).
BATHROOM:
Angela booked our room – to make sure we all got in at the same b&b – and had to figure out which couple got the room with the 2 single beds.
Yup. Andrew and I did.
No matter. A bed is a bed is a bed.
Or so I thought.
When we got there, it was pretty obvious we were in the kids’ room! hahaha! The sheets had little cartoon animals on it, and the beds themselves weren’t even real twin beds. They were more like those roll-away beds you get from a hotel when you have an extra person.
Pretty funny!
BEDROOM:
The first night we were there, we left our window open … towards the street, and it was *incredibly* loud. So ridiculously loud between merchants moving furniture and people talking on the street (yes, after midnight) and then early early in the morning a cart going by on the cobblestone. We decided it must be a cart of broken glass. Bumping along on the uneven street. At 5am.
Absolutely absurd how loud it was.
But then, the 2nd and 3rd night we slept right through all that. We must have been pretty exhausted.
Again – I can’t tell you how great this b&b was if you don’t mind sharing a bathroom.
Less than a block from the Duomo. Fantastic proprietors.
Loved it!
I loved this look into an international B&B! All the details were so fun. I wonder about the shower curtain. Was it just a concession to tourists, not something they would normally use? What a wonderful thing to be experiencing these beautiful things with your beloved!
I remember just cracking up hysterically at how loud it was outside that window. I loved this place, also your eyes look really pretty in that picture of you
xo