In my earlier days of traveling through Italy, during my twenties when I had not-so-much money, I stayed at hostels. And when I arrived in Florence, since the hostel was full-up, I ended up sleeping on the lawn in front of the train station. This was pleasant, as I was surrounded by other young travelers who dotted the landscape like cocoons that night. Pleasant, that is, until 5:30 AM when a police officer thumped his baton on my sleeping bag.
Fast forwarding to this past April when my husband/ soul mate and I came to Italy, and made Florence a primary destination, what a delightful difference it was to have a hotel to burrow into after a gritty train ride from Milan. The Hotel Cimabue offered many amenities that were lacking on my trip to the city those long 30 years ago.
While not as close to the train station as we had initially been led to believe at the website - do not attempt to walk there from the train station with your baggage; just take a taxi - it was a few blocks away from many dining establishments, and all the sights - the Duomo, Uffizi Gallery, Pallazio, Academie of Art where the David is kept, etc.
When we asked for some restaurant recommendations, Denis, the clerk on duty, told us about Pepo's and Zaza, both of which were located in the Central Market area. We had the opportunity to try both of them. We needed reservations for Pepo's and saved the experience there for our last evening. We also tried a couple of the other places nearby including O Sole Mio which I believe served the best pizza and salad I had in Italy. There was even an accordion player who graced us with "O Sole Mio" and then went from table to table with his hand open for euros.
Nobody would go wrong eating at any of these establishments.
Although our room at the Hotel Cimabue was modest in size, it provided us with a place to sleep, take a shower, have a very nice breakfast every morning, enjoy free Internet access and even hand-wash our socks and underwear in the bathroom sink. Although we stayed in a room overlooking the street, even during May Day which is arguably the noisiest night of the year with the most revelers staying up until dawn, our room was sound-proofed, and not a crack of daylight crept into the room when we wanted to sleep. One disconcerting thing, however, was that instead of one double mattress, our bed was comprised of two twins. We had not come to Florence to spend time in bed, and Hotel Cimabue turned out to be just the right spot for us.
The hotel staff were always pleasant, and if they did not know the answers to our questions, they performed research until they could find out what we needed to know. They turned us on to "Florence by Bike," a bicycle shop that rented some nice quality mountain bikes. These bikes carried us around town and helped us plot out all the places we wanted to see on foot.
All in all, our stay at Hotel Cimabue was a positive experience and we are still sifting through all the photographs of the most romantic city on Earth, Florence, Italy.
