It's too cold to throw myself in the Arno, right?

We've been extra busy here making travel plans for the next few months. Unfortunately, that has mostly meant extended harrowing phone calls with customer service representatives as we reschedule flights and attempt to exchange hard-earned frequent flier miles for actual free things. But next week we're taking a trip that hasn't been any hassle at all: one release request filled out by CameraMan, one visit to ÖBB (the Austrian national train service), several ecstatic emails to The New Oregonian, and it's planned!

This weekend we're going to Florence to visit The New Oregonian, who is working there for the first time. We're taking the overnight train on Sunday night, in a 6-berth couchette car, which will look something like this:

I'm pretty sure we have both booked top berths, so that should be awesome. If nothing else, it will be a good time for CM to get over his fear of heights.

We'll get into Florence at approximately 6:30am, just in time to take pretty sunrise pictures while stumbling around looking for espresso. Then we'll spend the day with TNO, who has Mondays free. We'll stay with her that night (we're trying to convince her that she does NOT need to sleep on the couch and give us the bed), and then spend Tuesday exploring on our own before we take another overnight train back to Vienna. This direction, we'll have a more luxurious private 2-bed sleeper car, which should look something like this:

The honeymoon suite it is not, but overnight train travel does have a certain romance about it anyway, am I right?

We've both been to Florence before, but never at this time of year, and never together, so we'll gladly take any and all suggestions of restaurants, museums, and other can't-miss Florentine experiences! We'll be there less than 48 hours—how should we spend our time?

Besides taking ridiculously gorgeous pictures, like this one from TNO: