Late breakfast in the Hotel della Signoria’s breakfast room with great rooftop views kicked off our relaxing Halloween in Florence.

We meandered through the nearby streets, visiting a market that appears each morning, and is taken down every night. Do these people start setting up at 3 am?

Later, we met my daughter and her husband for lunch at Gustarium, an interesting pizza shop that cuts as much from the whole pizza as you’d like, with a pair of scissors, and then weighs it as they charge by the kilo.

After wandering for a bit, we did a little shopping and checked out the fruit and vegetable shop…

While meandering, we felt the call for the requisite mid-afternoon capuccino…and of course, cookies at La Loggia Deglia Albitzi!

Then it was nap time. I’d gotten 13,447 steps in the previous day and was still feeling it.

After refreshing naps, we ventured out for dinner.

We window-shopped and wandered a bit, dipping into a bar for spritzes.

Italian children poured into the bar in groups of four or five, holding out bags for treats and returning to their waiting parents in the alley.

We were told that the Florentine specialty was steak…funny, for some reason I always thought that it was spinach. Our hotel bartender recommended a couple of steak restaurants, and so for dinner, we visited Trattoria dall’Oste Chianineria.

We ordered a mixed antipasto platter as an appetizer, and it turned out to be about four times the food that we’d anticipated.

Fortunately, they cheerfully boxed up half of it, which we used for our lunch the next day (more about that in a later post!).

The main course was astounding. A very hot iron rectangle was provided, that we used to heat/cook each piece as we ate.

Dessert was panna cotta with chocolate sauce …

And biscotti to be dipped in vin santo.

We passed through the Piazza della Signoria on our way back to the hotel and viewed the statues there.

The effect of the statues at night was stunning.

What an incredible end to a relaxing Halloween in Florence!

Now it was time to get some sleep to be ready for one last full day in Italy.