To begin, I confess to having become a fan of Delta Vacations [For the record, I do not now, and never have, worked for Delta. I am not compensated for promoting the platform.] As often happens in a fresh discovery, my introduction was accidental. My wife, Cynthia, and I had brunched at Salt Lake City’s delightful Manoli’s Restaurant and were somehow inspired to visit Greece. Upon investigating flight options, we found pricing close enough to stratospheric that we abandoned the project. Not long afterward, I received a random email from Delta (as a 1.5M lifetime flyer, I’m on their contact list) mentioning Delta Vacations. I hadn’t heard of it before and investigated. Checking trips to Greece, I found a vacation package that, with hotel, was less expensive than the flights I’d previously seen by themselves. We booked and enjoyed a fabulous trip that sold me forever.
We had been wondering about a visit to Florence, Italy. Investigating possibilities turned out to resemble investigating former Momon missionaries in Provo, Utah: too many to count. Turning to Delta Vacations, I searched and found a 20 day (you read that right) option in March, 2024. A feature of Delta Vacations I find especially attractive is that it comes packaged with a range of hotel options spanning different classes and price points. The first property I found suitable in this case looked ideal. Attractively appointed and well priced. I selected it and confirmed the trip.
To digress for a moment, I had previously visited Florence only once. And only for one day. I’d been on a trip with friends staying around Orvieto and drove there. In that case I’d flown to Paris, rented a car, and drove. As it dawned on me that this trip, by contrast, would fly us into the small Florence airport, I began to think about proximities. “If I’m flying into Florence, do I need to rent a car?” Checking the hotel’s location I’d selected, I found it was 20 minutes or so outside the city. Sounded like rental car territory.
Returning to the available hotel options, more mindful this time of location, I found one smack dab (a technical term we travelers use) in town, overlooking the Arno river flowing through Florence: the Plaza Hotel Lucchesi. I changed our hotel to the Lucchesi and now, having stayed there, recommend it without hesitation. In fact, “without reservation” understates my opinion. Instead, I’d say absolutely stay there if you can. Why might you not be able to? It has slightly fewer than 100 rooms and is often sold out. For good reason, in my opinion.
The Lucchesi was built in 1860 and so has both historical and periodic qualities. A thoroughly pleasant breakfast room is situated where guests exit the elevator or staircase, which also is immediately across from the hotel’s generously sized concierge desk. An attractive display in the breakfast room showcases renowned English author D.H. Lawrence, who was a bit of a fixture at the property. The hotel’s idyllic location and aesthetic elegance apparently were muse enough for him to use it as his writing study. Prominently on display in the showcase are bits of his handwritten correspondence, as well as an open copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
The breakfast room’s namesake daily fare is an appealing buffet of various breads, bacon/sausages, scrambled eggs, etc. Juices and coffees are plentiful (the Americano is excellent), cappuccino and such are available for the asking, and an a la carte menu complements the buffet’s assortment nicely.
As a historical artifact, the property has no central AC. Florence summers can be quite hot and rooms, I have no doubt, can become uncomfortable. On the other hand, the rooftop features a swimming pool affording fabulous views of the surrounding city and a reliably cooling respite from the day’s heat. In season, it can also serve to augment the property’s main-floor drinking, dining and entertainment venues.
Attractive plaster filigree highlights walls throughout public spaces, subtly offsetting the walls’ soothing, greenish pastel. Beautiful chandeliers of Murano glass light hall ways, rooms and public spaces. Unlike many hotels, the Lucchesi front desk is comparatively small. If it ever seems to be unstaffed, that appearance will evaporate when a person approaches; out of nowhere a helpful agent appears! To my eye, the lobby area’s dominant features are the restaurant entrance and, to an even greater extent, the bar (which also serves as an extension to the restaurant). Well provisioned bookcases grace the back wall, serving to frame a striking, high-relief graphic of a tall sailing ship, darkly set against a bronze-colored background.
Although facing a road that is at times quite busy with motor vehicle traffic, not to mention heavy bicycle and foot path use on paths bordering the road, the hotel interior is serenely quiet.
Still, the facility and accoutrements I’ve thus far described are not my number one reason for loving this hotel. No, that reason properly belongs to the hotel staff. As a person whose career has been in hospitality, I can attest that consistently superior customer service is exquisitely difficult to deliver day in and day out. Our service experience at the Plaza Hotel Lucchesi was uniformly world class. From the front desk, to breakfast room attendants, to bar and restaurant staff, to room attendants, the Lucchesi does itself proud, easily among the very best I’ve been privileged to enjoy. Due to our proclivities, the staff we had most regular contact with were the bar team, concierge staff, and breakfast room attendants. To a person, they made us feel welcome, appreciated, and well cared for. On more than one occasion we approached the on-duty concierge with a question about this or that outing, only to find the concierge prepared with still better suggestions for the same or similar outings.
Joined with its picture-perfect physical appeal and location, the overall package is a convincing explanation for the hotel’s stellar occupancy numbers.
With the exception of a single seasickness bout that, as an experienced aqua-recreation enthusiast of many years, I was sure must be Covid, our travels have been free of any alarming health episodes. This trip, sadly, would inflict a blemish on that record.
Almost as soon as we had deplaned, collected luggage and exited the airport, Cynthia was overtaken by a sudden, rather alarming, difficulty breathing. Thinking it would pass, we gamely grabbed a cab and headed to the Lucchesi. Upon arrival, check in proceeded with professional alacrity, after which the agent showed us to our room. To both of our consternation though, Cynthia was still experiencing notable respiratory distress. (In my case, the term “consternation” here would reflect a semantic slight-of-hand to avoid the more accurate term “panic.”) Literally fearing her life might be in jeopardy, I went to the front desk to ask if the hotel had a doctor on call. No doctor, but the agent told me an ambulance could get to us quickly if needed. I called Cynthia with an update. Although I was inclined to get her forthwith to a doctor, she declined, telling me she was starting to relax and feel less distress. In truth I should confess that my own agitation, which was decidedly pronounced, contributed manifestly to Cynthia’s anxiety. We exchanged sharpish words over her (probably accurate) view of my overreaction, and finally agreed to decide next steps in the morning.
Friends of ours who live in Padua, a short train ride to Florence, had made arrangements to join us for a couple of days. (These two, Tim and Laura, had made a trip to attend our wedding their first date.) They’d rented an apartment a short walk from our hotel and, once we were all assembled, took us to a nearby pharmacy. Listening to Laura’s description of Cynthia’s symptoms, the pharmacist gave (you read that right) Cynthia a device for delivering inhaler medication, sold us a medication insert for 4 Euros, and gave us a doctor’s business card, telling us to call the number on the card if Cynthia didn’t improve and the doctor would come to the hotel to evaluate for 50 Euros.
Thankfully, that wasn’t necessary, but I was struck by the transactional painlessness involved. In the USA, the inhaler rig we got would, in most cases, have required a prescription. The delivery unit and insert would have cost $hundreds.
Among other consequent actions very much under consideration was to scrub the trip: take the necessary steps to terminate the remainder and return home. Had Cynthia been even slightly in favor, that’s what we’d have done. Feeling reassured by the morning’s interventions, she was ready to keep on keeping on. Stay the course we did.
In planning their visit to Florence, Tim had bifurcated responsibilities with me – I would plan tourist activities; Tim and Laura would plan lunch and dinner. I expect there are sub-par dining establishments somewhere in Florence, but I’m taking that on a “law of averages” kind of faith. In terms of actual experience, truly superior fare was so much the norm that I fear identifying standouts is rather like selecting between a day of blue sky, deep powder skiing on Alta’s High Rustler vs the same day, but during one of those gentle snowfalls featuring impossibly large, impossibly light snowflake clusters. I’m reserving particular cuisine discussion for later while I think about it.
I chose a tour of the legendary Duomo as our first tourist activity. After the morning’s medical interventions Cynthia was feeling substantially better, but decided the wisest course for her was to stay back and rest, while Tim, Laura and I went to the Duomo. Disappointed? I was a bit. Relieved? I was a bit of that, too.
Before departing for Florence, Cynthia and I had watched videos online of the Duomo tour. Its highest point, the Cupola, affords visitors 360 degree, positively breathtaking, views of the city. The price for getting there, though, is a steep (did I mention “steep?”), narrow flight of 463 stairs. Before Cynthia’s respiratory problems appeared, I had privately worried to myself about whether the climb was something she should undertake. Although the reason was regrettable, I believed her decision to pass a good one.
The Duomo’s interior artwork is, well, an experience in its own right. Giorgio Vasari’s magnificent rendition of Vincenzo Borghini’s “Last Judgement” adorns the ceiling with macabre imaginations depicting great and terrible scenes from our latter days. The work’s scale, and colors’ vibrancy contrasted with the panel of Hell’s dark privations, infuse the atmosphere with a kind of foreboding well suited to the overall message.
Ascending to the Cupola’s 463 stairs brings visitor directly abreast of the painting, but once the final climb begins all attention diverts to the task at hand. Did I forget to mention the stairs are steep? Soldiering up them, we passed small clusters of visitors out of breath, waiting on tiny alcoves to recover the necessary resources to continue onward/upward. No doubt more than one such cluster was wondering what possessed them to believe this undertaking a good idea.
The climb is truly taxing, but the view upon reaching the top ushers any lingering thoughts of it into irrelevance. Much of the cityscape itself retains its medieval character, including the still-standing defensive wall and terminating fort from a history of warring with Rome. A nearby tower, accessible to us by virtue of our Duomo ticket, appears nearly as tall as the Duomo. Tourists are visible in its topmost vestibule, but our threesome decides any view from there will duplicate what we have already seen. Besides, Cynthia has by now been on her own for long enough that rejoining her became the priority. And lunch is beginning to interrupt our thinking.
Pizza. For lunch, Tim had made our reservations at his favorite Florence pizza joint. In truth, I can’t remember the place’s name, but I can attest to Italian pizza’s iconic dominance within the world’s hierarchy of cuisines. Regardless of its individual focus (seafood, vegetarian, etc.), every Italian restaurant in Florence has pizza on the menu. Many specialize in pizza. Many offer it simply because, well, it’s pizza. In general, calzones appear with more traditional pizzas on menus, but I noted with special interest a hybrid of the two called a “closed” pizza. As the name suggests, closed pizzas have a top crust. Also in general, pizza portions will exhaust even especially cavernous appetites, of which I’ve been accused of possessing. Beware the deep dish closed pizza! It is satiation of a sort before which Bacchus himself would tremble.
Another comestible worth special mention: the Florentine Steak. This example of carnivorous excess may not appear on as many menus as pizza, but there is no shortage of restaurants featuring them. There are different versions from place to place, but to call the portions large violently minifies what one should expect when first seeing a specimen. At the bustling, tantalizingly aromatic ZaZa restaurant, where Cynthia and I dared order one (ZaZa was a friend’s recommendation), the size was 2.1 kilos which, at 3 fingers thick, meant it would probably be rare no matter how we ordered it.
Don’t imagine that just any steakhouse can put Florentine steak on the menu using something like prime rib. Oh no, Florentine steak must come from Tuscany’s Chianina or Maremma cattle. Florentine steak must also be cut from what a butcher calls the short loin. Florentine steak is a tradition with rules that must be diligently observed if the product is to qualify as authentic Florentine steak.
Between us, Cynthia and I may have dispatched 1/3 of ours before surrendering to the deity of doggy bags. At least in our case, that much steak consumed in a sitting would far outdistance 2nd place. I attribute our uncharacteristic, outsized volume consumed to the meat’s incredible tenderness and flavor. We put what we returned with in our room’s mini-fridge and ate the rest of it over the next day or so. A further testament to the meat’s quality is that it remained tender and delicious cold out of the fridge.
Meanwhile, back to our visit with Tim and Laura. Besides the Duomo, there were museums to tour. Rather than dwell on the details of many, I’m going to stick to highlights. Believe it or not, Florence’s obscenely enviable museum collection is vast enough to induce yawns and crossed eyes if recounted at sufficient length. Let’s avoid that.
Number one for me in the museum parade would be the Leonardo Interactive Museum. It is filled with DaVinci inventions that visitors can operate. The number recognizable as having a place in present-day society is remarkable. Next would be Museo Galileo, which features an array of scientific instruments notable both for their number and precision, not to mention the breadth of science disciplines served. - collectively another entry in the many faceted “ways Florence Italy shaped the world” saga.
Moving on, the Accademia Galleria is where Michelangelo’s David is housed. “Stunning” describes not only David, but the dizzying collection of so many masterpieces. Which brings me to the many splendored, exaggeration resistant Uffizi Gallery, whose 3 floors of wall-to-wall Renaissance era collections take a minimum of 3 – 4 hours to peruse. The building itself was constructed for the purpose between 1560 and 1580 and is another artifact (to which I would add the Pitti Palace) commemorating the Medici’s dynastic commitment to arts and sciences.
Lesser known sites we thought worth a stop include the world’s oldest operating pharmacy, established by Dominican friars 800 (or so) years ago, still in its original digs. Dante’s home, now a museum. The Central Market, a massive collection of food and beverage offerings ranging from stalls laden with meats, vegetables, cheeses, breads/pastries, and wines, to eating establishments serving something of everything on the top floor’s picnic tables. Stopping for an impromptu light lunch, we happened to sit within earshot of 4 men speaking English seated nearby. Turns out they worked for Adobe, headquartered in Salt Lake City’s neighboring Lehi, and were in Florence on business (better them than us). They were just finishing, but took the time to engage us in a short, pleasant conversation about our places of origin.
The encounter reminded me once again that chance meetings with people in our travels are as delightful as they are impossible to foretell.
Visitors to Florence have attractive options enough that taking side trips is purely a judgement call. The Clash may have found “Should I Stay or Should I Go” a puzzling dilemma, but in Florence neither choice is likely to disappoint. Certainly, Cynthia’s and my decision to add “The Best of Tuscany Tour” to our itinerary was one we would enthusiastically make again.
On our trip to Peru (see the entry “Snakebit In Peru” for more) we endured bus rides of such frequency and duration that we pretty much swore them off for future consideration. And yet, the Best of Tuscany (bus) tour’s allure promised compensatory enjoyment enough to justify an exception. No doubt one of many yet to come. Peoples’ inclination to peregrinate, after all, benefits immeasurably from flexibility.
The tour’s first stop, Siena, is a remarkably well preserved Medieval town well suited to exploration on foot. The town’s Duomo (they’re everywhere in Italy!) is not only another ornately striking cathedral, its inlaid marble floor, begun in the 14th century, took only two hundred years (!) to complete. I’ve undertaken home construction that seemed to take that long. Imagine enduring two hundred years in real time. Perhaps the 40 Italian artists’ involvement added to the timeline… In any event, the finished product stands as another testament to the Italian commitment to artistic brilliance. These things take time, and in today’s world the idea of a single artistic undertaking spanning generations might qualify one for a trip to visit Nurse Ratched.
A central Piazza in Siena hosts the twice yearly “Palio di Siena” horse race. Each of the town’s 17 neighborhoods, or “Contrade,” field a champion for the competition. The race itself lasts only 90 seconds and the winning Contrade takes home only bragging rights (that have been coveted for centuries). The Piazza around which the horses, which are ridden bareback, race is not impressively large, but will accommodate 40k to more than 50K event spectators. I’m thinking the last to arrive must need the equivalent of a shoehorn to squeeze into the throng.
The next stop, San Gimignano (nicknamed Medieval Manhattan), stole my heart. Its picturesque streets and shops, abundant frescoes, and quiet elegance were enough to make me wish for a longer stop. The town’s main square, Piazza della Cisterna, features a truly representative fixture of modern Italian living: the award winning Gelateria di Piazza, with flavors enough to befuddle indecisive browsers for hours. My own fondness for ice cream transfers seamlessly, it turns out, to gelato. Yes, I indulged.
Our last stop, probably the most famous, was Pisa. The tower is still leaning, you can be sure. I was tempted to take one of those cheesy tourist shots of me “holding up” the tower. I could have sent it to our OTF studio manager with the caption “Thanks to Orange Theory...” but thought better of it. I did want to climb the Tower’s stairs, but by the time we’d finished taking in museum and other very Renaissance-feeling sites, the stairs were closed. Upon reflection, I can’t say for certain whether that was a strategic or accidental effect.
A final excursion, also by bus, took us to two exquisitely beautiful Tuscany wineries. In point of fact, by bus, automobile, bicycle or on foot, passing through the Tuscan countryside is an affair of the heart. Everywhere are rolling green hills, dotted by vineyards, olive groves and, naturally, viticulture of a truly rarified sort. An artifact of the area’s history, villages cluster around the hilltops, using the high ground for defensive advantage. In the mists of bygone days, these were essentially fiefdoms in periodic contest with one another for supremacy. Funny that the thing seemingly most variable in these regards is dimensionality; conflict size and ferocity expand and contract, but conflict remains a relative constant.
The wineries we visited were, in order, Villa Il Pozo Winery, and Tenuta Torciano Winery. Both project the kind of beatific aura movies like “Under the Tuscan Sun” assure viewers is inextricably, comprehensively interwoven within the landscape. In addition to the visual feast, we were treated in each to artfully presented/selected light fare and wine tastings. A personal favorite of mine in the world of red wines is what I call, generically, “slap you in the face” reds. Sturdy zins, ruby cabs and dusty francs – that sort of thing. This excursion introduced me to a new, somewhat ill defined variety called Super Tuscan (none of the bottles I saw sported a cape). I say ill defined because it is essentially a blend, usually (not always) based on Sangiovese and blended with both other Italian varietals and international grapes. The Super Tuscans we tasted qualify easily for the “slap you in the face” rating. Even Cynthia, whose natural inclination bends toward big, buttery chards, was taken with it enough to invest in a bottle. We knew, upon our return to the Lucchesi, that the bar’s remarkable service professionals would set us up with not only suitable glassware and, if we’d wanted, a decanter (we declined), but a small, tasty array of bar snacks.
Without a doubt, Cynthia’s onset of respiratory distress compromised the trip’s enjoyment to a degree, but the overall excellence of everything else somehow managed to push that bit smartly into the background. It also served to remind us: as we age, the importance of travel insurance gains prominence, as does the home truth that life comes with no guarantees. Carpe diem, because tomorrow is no more certain than any other forecast, which is to say, “forever in error.”
Ciao!
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