Where do you live in Florence? #5

Where do we live in Florence?

We live in a lovely one bedroom apartment that was renovated not long ago.  Everything is modern and the furnishings are nice.  We rented the apartment for a year based only on photographs and the recommendation of the rental agent, a very reputable company in Florence.  Upon our arrival, the apartment exceeded our expectations.  So, we are happy to be calling this apartment home for a year.

We have already shared a few photos of the apartment (the loft and the view from the balcony).  Here is a complete set of photos from the rental agent's website, with some of our own photos.  Enjoy the virtual tour.

The building where the apartment is located is large.  Originally, it was home to a Florentine family starting 500 years ago.  Over time, it was converted into multiple individual apartments for many families. 

Our building is tall and wide.  Our apartment is at #20 and is located on the third floor in the back.

#20, our front door.  The door is heavy, thick and well-secured.

Once inside the front door, you are in a nice vestibule with a decorated, barrel-vaulted ceiling.  Next is another well secured door, an iron gate.

After the iron gate is an old stairway.  It goes up and up.  Let's start climbing the stairs to our third floor apartment.  Like many older buildings in Florence, our building has no elevator. 

As a reminder, in Europe, floor numbering is different than in the U.S.  The floor on the street level is called the piano terra or ground floor, not the first floor.  Instead, the floor directly above the ground floor is called the first floor, and so on. 

All this is just a long way of saying that we live in what would be called in NYC a 4th floor walk up.  Good for exercise, especially when toting luggage or grocery bags. 

Here we are on the second floor, the door to our apartment.  But wait, we said our apartment is on the third floor.  It is.  Once through our apartment's door, there is another stairway inside the apartment.  We think it's cool.   

The stairway inside our apartment leads up to the living room.

The living room.

Another view of the living room.

The bedroom.  The bright orange sheets can be seen from space, which is why the International Space Station uses our apartment as a landmark while orbiting the earth.

The terrace outside the bedroom.  The terrace looks onto a school's athletic fields and, in the distance, the large garden of the Four Seasons hotel.

The bathroom.  A small clothes washer sits on the far side of the sink.  No clothes dryer since dryers consume too much high-cost electricity

The kitchen.  There is no microwave since they consume a lot of high-cost electricity.

The loft with a convertible couch/bed

The upstairs half bath

That's nearly the end of the tour.  What we truly enjoy about the apartment is its great location and wonderful windows.  How would you like to wake up to this view every morning? 

We like the view very much and we would be very happy to share it with you in person.