Traveling to Florence for our Road Scholar program

(This is part of our series of posts from our six-week Road Scholar Independent Living and Learning in Florence trip to Italy in Spring 2025. We have an index to all the posts from that trip here.)

Today we finally embarked on a trip that’s been planned for more than a year. We will be spending six weeks in Florence, Italy, participating in a Road Scholar program called “Living and Learning in Florence: Independent Stay and Language Study”. After three nights in a hotel in the historic center of Florence, during which we and the rest of our group of about 20 people will get an orientation to the city, we’ll move to an apartment nearby. We’ll be attending daily language classes and frequent lectures and group activities, but we’ll also have plenty of time to explore on our own.

We departed Tucson, Arizona early Thursday morning, flying from there to DFW, then DFW to Rome, and finally Rome to Florence. Although the first flight was delayed for two hours due to weather in Dallas, and the overseas flight was then delayed by an hour due to an equipment change, we (and our luggage) still made both connections and arrived in Florence on time. A short taxi ride brought us to our hotel in the historic center of Florence, where we did a bit of exploring the rest of the day.

Here’s Cheryl on our transatlantic flight, the second of our three flights of the day. About three hours before this flight, our mileage upgrade to Business Class finally came through…yay!

David just before departure on the transatlantic flight (Dallas to Rome). At that moment, he was on the phone with American Airlines, trying to get our Rome to Florence flight changed to a later departure because the overseas flight was going to arrive late.

Getting a little bit of sleep on the overnight transatlantic flight. Not like our bed at home, but still pretty comfy.

As it turned out, transiting through the Rome airport was much quicker than we expected, and even though our flight from Dallas arrived late, we were still able to make it to our originally scheduled flight from Rome to Florence with 10 minutes to spare. Florence has a small airport where you deplane on stairs to the ramp and then take a bus a short distance to the terminal.

Our hotel in Florence, where we’re spending our first three nights before moving to an apartment for the rest of our stay, overlooks the Capo di Ponte, the head of the famous Ponte Vecchio bridge. The bridge is behind the building on the left.

We got settled into the hotel, then headed out to find some lunch and walk around the area.

Cheryl at the Ponte Santa Trinita, the bridge immediately west of the Ponte Vecchio.

Looking down the River Arno at the most famous bridge in Florence, the Ponte Vecchio (“old bridge”), which is located where a Roman bridge of ancient Florentia once stood. It’s been rebuilt many times due to the Arno’s floods, but today’s bridge follows the design built in 1345. The shops lining the bridge were originally butchers and fishmongers, but those were replaced by jewelry shops in 1593. It was the only Florentine bridge that was not destroyed in 1944 during the Nazi retreat.

Standing on the Ponte Vecchio with the Arno and the Ponte Santa Trinita in the background.

The Ponte Vecchio is constantly thronged with tourists.

We discovered a fantastic gelateria just a few steps from the hotel.

After our early afternoon walk, the long day of travel finally caught up with us, and an afternoon nap back at the hotel was welcome. Then in the evening, we walked a few blocks to a ristorante across from the Pitti Palace, where we enjoyed a delicious dinner and chatted with a friendly waiter, who let David practice his Italian with him.