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Updated: Nov 18, 2021 129 Comments · by

Coffee Break: Oversized Double Loop Bag

Coffee Break

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I was reflecting recentlyish on my personal collection of bags — I tend to have a lot of crossbodies, a ton of totes, a few shoulder bags, a few handbags (like my one Louis Vuitton), my All Saints backpack, and a TON of slouchy hobos from brands like Cole Haan, Rebecca Minkoff, Botkier, and Dooney & Bourke. (Oh, and a bunch of clutches I never get to use these days.) Welp, I thought, these huge hobos are never going to be in again — I really should just give them all to Goodwill.

So I was amused to see Cuyana come out with an oversized double loop bag that looks pretty similar — it's a lot more structured than the majority of mine, but the overall vibe in the outfit is the same. What do you think, readers — do you like it? What is your everyday bag wardrobe like these days — and how much do you spend on bags?

The pictured bag is a seasonal color (merlot); there are also two seasonal suede colors (brown and taupe). They have five “core” colors, all in pebbled leather, for $395. I like the side pockets as well as the interior pockets, but wish the bag had feet and a zippered or magnetic closure on top.

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Sales of note for 9.30.24

Sales of note for 9.30.24

And some of our latest threadjacks here at Corporette (reader questions and commentary) — see more here!

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Kat Griffin is the founder, publisher, and editor-in-chief of Corporette. You can read more about her here.

Comments

  1. Anon

    Thoughts on Frye campus boots as my replacement for some beat-up light tan suede booties (what was I thinking? I cook with red sauce and oil a lot and am sloppy.)? I need some winter footwear I can wear with socks or my feet will ice up and make me really unhappy. Cannot do flats + bare ankles now the way I could a few weeks ago.

    • Senior Attorney

      I actually wore those on campus in the mid-70s and loved them. Not sure if that’s a plus or a minus in your analysis.

      • Anon

        I saw an e-mail yesterday on the style of Love Story, so maybe 70s is a trending thing now?

    • Cat

      you’d be wearing these around your house?? They seem too heavy/clunky for puttering around the kitchen to me.

      • Anon

        No. Usually I change into crocs at home, but the booties were so comfy (in a way that shoes usually aren’t), I would just keep them on and not bother to change. This is what happens when your office goes to denim-OK from bus-casual.

        • Anon

          I’ve been wearing a pair of Thursday Vanguard boots (men’s, but a 7.5 fits my women’s 9.5 foot perfectly). They’re stiff enough that they’re comfortable for my bike ride to work, and look nice with work appropriate jeans. They’ve held up well for the 3 years or so that I’ve had them.

  2. anon

    I need gift ideas for my SILs. They are both mid thirties, both professional writers who travel a fair bit, no kids. One is more into cutesy comfy stuff, usually jewel tones or prints with cats. The other is a bit trendier (calls herself “basic”) and wears only neutrals and very small accessories. Both are kind of into cooking, but I don’t know what kitchen stuff they already have. Typically DH’s siblings exchange nice booze, but as the only non-drinkers, we’d probably get that wrong.

    • pugsnbourbon

      What’s your budget? My first thought was a little plane kit – compression socks, a wrap, eye mask, pillow, etc.

          • Anon

            Eh it’s very personal though, and people have chosen the stuff they use because that’s what they like. I personally wouldn’t want an upgrade even if it was to objectively “nicer” things.

          • Ses

            Yeah, I doubt anyone could get my particular travel formula down unless they asked me. And I order stuff I need in multiples (multiple eye masks, socks, have several plane wraps/pashminas, etc). Sorry to put the kibosh on this thoughtful idea, but wanted to provide a fussy-seasoned-traveler perspective in case that’s relevant.

      • Ses

        oh, but what I did appreciate last time I travelled was my friend getting me a pack of little pre-mixed cocktails-to-go. I put them in checked baggage and had a lot of fun with them when I got to my destination. I don’t know the brand, but they were in little flat square packages and you could tear the corner off and pour it over ice.

    • Anon

      I’m a mid-30s professional writer who travels a lot! I don’t really want stuff that’s not consumable and the fact that they normally exchange booze makes me think they may feel the same way. What about food? I like See’s for anyone who has a sweet tooth but there are lots of savory options on Goldbelly.

    • IL

      Spices? Either from Penzey’s or Jacobsen or World Spice Merchant. Or a fancy olive oil and balsamic vinegar boxed set, which is a pretty universal gift if the recipient cooks.

    • anon

      If you have a local wine or spirits store, go there and ask a clerk for a recommendation. Works best if you have an independent local shop—I’m not sure if big chains invest in teaching their staff about their products as much.

    • DC

      For the cats-loving SIL, how about the Trolley Mini in the cats orchid print. It’s a great cosmetics/accessories organizer available on QVC.

    • Blackberry Farm pantry items

      Get them Blackberry Farm pantry items! Incredible quality and super nice for foodies.

    • Anonymous

      a box of Frans chocolates. I became obsessed with them when I visited Seattle and they’re my go to gift of super luxurious amazing chocolates for people who have all other stuff and they’re a hit

    • Notinstafamous

      A set of pens that are nice to write with but aren’t so expensive you can’t lose them from your local fancy stationary / paper store with a gift receipt so they can go pick out their own pens after if you get it wrong. Caran d’ache for nice ballpoints, or Muji actually has a really nice fountain pen of all places. I love my lamy CP1 for a fountain pen, lamy studio for a ballpoint.

  3. Anon

    I love this bag and am sorely tempted. All of my other Cuyana stuff has held up so well, and that’s why I don’t exactly NEED this bag…

  4. Anon

    For those of you with dogs, at what point do they become morning / evening walk dogs (vs also needing a noon-day walk)? And other than the hard way, is there a way to know when the dog is ready? Spouse can usually run home at lunch, but when he can’t, pup (18 months) goes to day care. Soon we will start periodic work travel and if we don’t need the noon walk, we can keep it going when it is easy but might like some flexibility. Kids get home round 4 and can walk the dog then (and then do a more vigorous / longer walk when an adult is home).

    Large dog — 85 pounds and a golden-looking mutt, so if size matters, factor that in. He’s so large it’s hard to talk a stranger into entering the house to walk him (and he is a very loud barker). He gets a 1-mile walk in the morning before I leave for work, along with a “relief stop” trip outside when I get up.

    • Anon

      Our chihuahua mix has never had more than two walks per day, but we adopted her as a housebroken adult, not a puppy.

    • Anonymous

      I would say you’re probably safe at that point (around 18 months-2 years) based on my experience.

    • AIMS

      If i remember correctly from puppy training, the general rule of thumb is that a puppy can hold it in for as many hours as they are months old, plus one. I would assume that stops to apply somewhere between 6 months and a year. My dog is fully grown and we walk him 3 times a day — morning, after we come home from work (between 5 and 6) and before bed. I think if your kids walked your dog at 4 that would be fine at this point.

    • Anonymous

      What I’ve always heard is that adult dogs should be able to hold it for 8 hours but not longer. If the kids are letting him out at around 8:00 before they get on the bus and again at 4:00 when they get home, he should be fine. That’s what we used to do before WFH.

      He will probably do much better home alone all day if you give him a longer morning walk. If my Golden mix only has a 1-mile morning walk, she tends to get antsy in the middle of the afternoon. With a 3-mile walk, she naps all day and gets up when the kid gets off the bus at 4:00. She walks another mile or so in the evening. She’s 8, so I’d imagine an 18-month-old dog would need even more exercise, with a good chunk of it in the morning.

      • Anon

        OP here — this makes sense. During WFH, we easily walked a 5K+ each day, often closer to a 10K, but that was then. I figured that the mid-day walk never hurt and the kids walk the dog about another mile and then there is another walk. But if we ever get a life again, dog might really just be “used” to things. OTOH, there was construction on our block this morning and it seemed that the dog was too distracted to poop and the off of his usual game on the rest of his walk. Hopefully I’m not coming home to a present.

        • Assoc. w/ dog

          Perspective from the side of a dog being too high energy to be left at home during the day or to only get 2 walks (as opposed to just a concern about if the dog will pee inside): We got our pup (high energy mix) pre-COVID so we had a few times where he had to be home for a couple hours while we were at work. We didn’t have issues with peeing inside, etc., but he had too much energy to be left without some form of “exercise” during the day. So we gave him a large frozen kong when we left and it helped immensely. He was distracted by the treat while we were leaving & it would mentally exercise him as he had to bounce it around and lick/chew/paw it to get the food out. Since it was frozen, it wasn’t a quick bout of mental stimulation/exercise either. It worked well for us. If you get the “kong” at Walmart (brand & name is Vibrant Life Treat Buddy Rubber Chew; $3.82 for one), you can get more than one without it being too expensive. I would make 5 on Sunday using a certain amount of his food mixed with water and shredded carrots, etc. then freeze them for the week. (Obvious caveat of watch him with the kong for the first few times/ensure there aren’t choking hazards, etc. usual warnings re: leaving toys or whatever with dogs)

    • Anonymous

      We hire professional dog-walkers. Dogs get to know them & being barked at when coming into the house is fine.

    • Anonymous

      Our giant puppy (18 months old, 80 pound mutt) goes outside and plays fetch in the morning with my husband while he drinks coffee and eats breakfast. He then gets a long walk in the evening. I think he has kind of adjusted his energy level to expect his long walk in the evening, because he sleeps a lot during the day and then gets excited and hyper when the kids come home through his walk.

    • overrun with dogs

      Is this a bathroom question or an exercise question? A large 18 month dog could very well hold it for the length of the workday. If it’s an exercise question and you have a fenced yard sufficient for play: I have three large dogs. Our dog trainer doesn’t walk her large dogs every day. She prefers a 20 minute walk every other. Her reasoning is that you’ll never sufficiently exercise a large dog on a walk–their stamina outpaces yours, largely, and as their walks grow so does their endurance, leading to a cycle of needing more time/distance/speed to reach the same level of “exercised.” She considers a walk not so much exercise but stimulation and says owners should vary the stimulation they present dogs. So while she does a walk every other day, she also makes sure she’s providing multiple types of stimulation on the “off” day: treat puzzles, flirt poles (oy does my 3 year old mutt love that; the other two are old and can’t be bothered), fetch, training sessions, sniff games, playing with other dogs. That’s neither here nor there if your dog can only pee/poop on a walk, but if you do have a yard and he otherwise can hold it, it’s just a different perspective on walk frequency/duration. All this is to say, maybe throw in a flirt pole session in the evening if there’s no noon exercise and see if that meets his needs. They are cheap on Amazon.

  5. Book Rec?

    I like giving books as holiday gifts to the readers in my life. Last year, I gave my mother in law “The Huntress” and she really enjoyed it. She also likes the Louise Penny series about Inspector Gamache. Given that background, any suggestions for other books she might enjoy?

    I’m giving my SO the Earthsea series and my father in law will get Ken Follett’s new book, in case anyone is curious!

    • Anon

      Hillary Clinton just wrote a book with Louise Penney – that could be a good choice assuming she’s not a Hillary hater.

      • Anon

        Highly recommend!! I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning reading it because I couldn’t put it down. I am probably the biggest HRC fan in the world, though.

      • Anonymous

        I liked it until the ending, which was preposterous. It seemed like she got bored and decided to finish it off with a bang as quickly as she could.

    • Vicky Austin

      I was just about to come here and ask for book recs generally! Thank you!

  6. Anon

    I missed the combined leave discussion earlier. I have never had any sort of leave (vacation is “use your judgment”) and I have a feeling that we don’t have the infrastructure to track things like sick leave (much less taking anything less than full days). I’m in the US. Is this sort of leave just a government thing? I’m on job 3 out of school and don’t have to show doctor’s notes and after a lot of remote work lately, I’m not sure how people know if you’re out sick vs just working remotely vs on vacation. Maybe I appreciate the management obliviousness since it seems to really rub people the wrong way (but if you don’t have kids, is 2 weeks sick leave + 2 weeks vacation really that skimpy? vs 4 weeks combined? I don’t think I’ve every seen anyone take off 4 weeks in year, especially all at once, other than an employee whose family was in a serious car wreck while taking the kids to camp out of state).

    • Anonymous

      This is a weird rambling post. Yes. In the US many people have separate sick and vacation time. As clearly you saw this morning.

      • Anon

        This board skews towards government lawyers tho, so not a representative slice if that’s not you.

        • Anon

          Really? I do not have that impression at all. There are plenty of people here in law firms or in house, as well as many non-lawyers.

        • Curious

          Hi from tech. *Waves*. I have had a defined time off policy at 5/5.places I’ve worked full time in the US and Europe, from the 9-person non-profit to Amazon.

    • Anon

      It’s pretty standard in the corporate world to have official leave banks for sick and vacation or sometimes combined. I think 15 days of vacation is fairly standard in corporate America, and I use more then 5 days on sick leave (myself + kid combined, I seem to catch everything she brings home from daycare) so 20 days total feels really stingy to me. If I didn’t have little kids or eldercare responsibilities, 20 days combined would probably be ok because I could average 5 sick days or less per year and have my 15 vacation days. But I am still super grateful for my govt job with much more generous leave. I have and take 5 weeks of vacation every year, and it’s great. It would take a lot for me to give that up.

      • Anon

        I also just really hate combined leave because I think its unfair to discriminate against people who get sick often. Whether it’s parents who catch every daycare bug or someone with a chronic illness or someone who cares for an elderly parent with lots of medical appointments, being sick or caring for a sick family is different than vacation and should be treated separately. Before kids I would have been like “20 days combined is great! I use one or two sick days a year and have 18+ days to travel. How awesome!” But parenthood has hugely increased the amount of sick leave I need to use, and I think it’s really unfair to just tell parents (or chronically ill people or elder caregivers) that they don’t get to take any vacations.

        • Anonymous

          Is this really discrimination, though? I am not sure companies should have to pay for an employee to take unlimited time off for sick leave and caregiving and then ensure that employee also gets additional vacation—it seems difficult to implement that fairly. At what point do you think a company should be permitted to replace the absent worker?

          • Anon

            I didn’t mean discrimination in the legal sense. I mean it’s unfair. I think the vast majority of employees are hard-working and honest and won’t abuse sick leave. We have unlimited sick leave and I know I work as much as I can when I’m home sick or with sick kids – sometimes it’s most of a day, sometimes it’s a half day, sometimes it’s just monitoring email but I do my best. I’m aware that someone could call in sick every week because they want a three day weekend, but I honestly don’t know anyone who does anything like that at my company and I think there are other ways of dealing with that, i.e, punishing the employee for not getting their stuff done, because an employee who is taking every Friday as a “sick day” is pretty much guaranteed going to be performing poorly in general. Replacing employees and bringing them up to speed is ridiculously expensive so generally it’s an employer’s interest to retain good employees, even if they use a fair amount of sick leave.

          • Anon

            Or at those levels, just accept that the employee may realistically be working a PT schedule. Where I’ve worked that had many PT people, if you worked 20/30 hours, you could still get benefits (why people often do work in those circumstances). But if you need to fill a job, at some point, you need a person in the job. You may need two .75 employees for true coverage.

          • Anon

            I mean, even using one sick day a month would kill more than half of a 20 day PTO allotment and using two a month would exceed that limit, but someone who is using one or two sick days per month is hardly “absent” or only working a 75% schedule. I use 10-15 days per year on average, and am much more productive than many people who never take sick leave. And from talking to my boss and managers I know I’m not alone in that.

    • Anon

      Well you’re living the life of unlimited vacation. No one actually takes it.

      But traditionally companies had separate sick time and PTO, then started offering combined PTO and sick, the result of which was people came into the office sick so that they could still take vacations.

      The last company I worked for offered 10 days combined PTO to start, then up to 15 after a few years, then 20 where they maxed out for all employees, including executives. They didn’t offer most bank holidays so you had to use PTO to take one of those Mondays off, and they didn’t offer WFH at all. It really wasn’t enough.

    • Cat

      No it’s not just a government thing, you just have the “in theory great, in practice awful” unlimited vacation policy type of employer.

      • Anon

        I have this and it really has not been awful. It’s just sort of neutral. I honestly don’t think about it much. As a single person, it is hard to take off a ton of time solo w/o getting lonely and I only want to visit my family so much each year.

        • Anon

          Ok but surely you realize not everyone wants to take as little time off as you do? No one is ever forcing you to use vacation time. You can always let it accrue and at least some of it will pay out when you retire or quit.

          • Anon

            I really am not up on other people’s vacations. TBH, all I cared about was salary and if there was any 401K match.

          • Anon

            That’s fine for you then. But a lot of people think having very limited vacation time would be awful.

        • Anon

          So if you’re not taking vacation time off, because your time is “unlimited” you’re not able to bank it and get paid out for that time. It’s more profitable for your company, less profitable for you.

          • Anon

            Oh, like they should only be able to get 48 weeks of work from you but pay you for 52 (sort of like the “13th month” of pay you see in some countries)? I guess that is maybe why accrual systems are good. Or they were for me. I left a job and got about a month of extra salary that I legit had no idea was coming my way. I think they had previously been on an unlimited system but people had abused that particularly when about to quit.

    • Anon

      Spouse’s company does combined leave and some people have to take unpaid time off b/c they blow through it. I think that they work out things case-by-case where there is grave / sustained illness (like some sort of ST disability or alternative work arrangement), but not if you’re always running out of your leave bank.

    • Anon

      I’m in government now but my two jobs in the private sector both had 15 days of paid vacation, plus some holidays and a couple personal days, plus sick leave (one job had unlimited sick leave, the other one I think had 10 days?). I always took more then 20 days off. Never all at once, of course.

  7. Anon4this

    Considering doing the mortgage forbearance program, and wondering if there are any downsides we are not aware of? It seems like it doesn’t impact credit scores, and easy enough to apply.

    • Anon

      Lord, no. Can you pay? If so, you should pay. If you can’t, that is different. But any mod/forbearance in the hands of the computer systems and humans at a mortgage servicer are just daring the gods to have something catastrophic not happen. A lot of stuff can/does go wrong. Call and talk to a human.

  8. Anonymous

    What should I binge watch with my husband next week on vacation? We’ve seen & enjoyed recently: Money Heist, Succession, Squid Game, White Lotus. We watched all of Raised by Wolves but didn’t like it (smoke monster memories). Need to see Ted Lasso’s second season.

    • pugsnbourbon

      I just watched Midnight Mass – while it lagged at points I really liked it overall.
      We’ve enjoyed some Netflix reality series: 7 Days Out, Bad Sport, and Home Game.

    • NYCer

      It is older, but if you haven’t watched it, I highly recommend The Americans.

      • Anon

        +1 for the Americans, since you seem to like darker undercurrents in shows. Speaking of older-darker-undercurrent shows – Enlightened is from Mike White who did White Lotus and could work here.

        But also, if you want joy on vacation Never Have I Ever?

        • yes

          Enlightened is such a good show. Not enough people saw it. Laura Dern does such a great job at being funny/painful/heartbreaking to watch. Many of the women on this board would really appreciate it. Mike White is very talented. I think Enlightened is much better than White Lotus.

    • buffybot

      Similar to White Lotus in tone (funny but dark): Only Murders in the Building; The Great; Dickinson.

    • Anon

      We’re watching The Flight Attendant right now on HBO Max and I’m super into it. It’s a slow burn; what you think is going to be a simple story gets complex over the course of several episodes.

      We also just watched the documentary on HBO Max about the child murders in Atlanta in the late 1970s/early 1980s and while it was sad, it was very well done and thought-provoking.

    • Anonymous

      only murders in the building!!! and I currently am liking sex education (hilarious) on Netflix and mythic quest on Apple TV.

  9. Anon

    I love that the strap on this bag is actually big enough to wear on my shoulder! I find so many totes/shoulder bags have such short straps.

  10. Winter candle

    My mom has requested a candle that smells like a winter forest for holiday gift, any recommendations? More fresh than perfumey if that makes sense.

  11. Anonymous

    Do you find influencer gift guides helpful? I don’t follow many influencers but their gift guides seem to range range from barefoot dreams basic to an overwhelming amount of gift content. Busy toddler seems to be the only helpful one, but that could also be the stage of life I’m in. Bah humbug, I guess?

    • Anon

      I don’t, it’s a lot of the same thing over pushed and over from the same influencer-friendly stores to get that sweet referrer cash. I don’t mind one or two but there are some websites where they have like every staff member and their husbands provide suggestions.

    • anon

      Not usually, although occasionally I’ve stumbled upon something I wouldn’t have found or considered otherwise. Most gift guides are filled with items that are priced a lot higher than what my family spends on adults. Or is just “off” in a bougie sort of way.

      • Cookbooks

        I agree! The ladies here have such lovely recommendations! If you have a specific idea in mind, I would ask here. I’ve received fantastic responses, in the past.

    • Anon

      No, but I generally don’t want non-consumable stuff and I don’t buy my kid toys (she has toys, they just come from other people).

    • Anon

      In general no but I find Cup of Jo’s guides the best and have gotten inspiration for friends and myself from her. I find it so annoying when people say they’re all about simplicity or they don’t buy their kid a lot of stuff and then they feature a gift guide with 30 things they say they’re buying for Christmas. One way or another they’re lying and it just bugs me.

  12. Anon

    I am currently in the interview process for 2 jobs. I interviewed for Job A last Monday, and they are apparently checking my references now (I have confirmation they have spoken to 2 of the 3), and they said they would get back to me “within the next week”. I did a first round interview for Job B on Tuesday of this week, and now they want me to do an hour and a half long writing assignment plus another interview next week. I want Job A more, but would be happy with Job B. Is it bad to contact Job A and tell them I have interest from other companies, and want to hear from them ASAP (obviously in nicer wording than that)? I don’t really want to do all of this writing assignment stuff if I don’t have to – it’s taking time away from my current job and is for a job I don’t want as badly.

    • Smokey

      By all means, let Company A know that you have interest from another company.

    • Anon

      I wouldn’t tell Job A until Job B unless I had an offer from Job B. Based on the timeline you described, it sounds like Job A is much further along in the process anyway.

      If Job A fell through, would you still be interested in Job B? You said you would be happy with it, so I think you should just spend the time on the writing assignment and second round interview. I know it’s no fun to invest the extra time outside of your regular job (going through it right now, myself), but the extra few hours you spend now will all be in the rearview mirror once you get an offer.

  13. Anon

    Here is another benefits question:

    When I had a kid, I got dependent insurance. It was $X. I had another kid. Dependent insurance was still just $X (not $2X). That makes sense because . . . why?

    Maybe so many people have just 1 kid and subsidize / overpay for me (typical, 2) and really subsidize people with 3 (common here) and 4 (about the max I’ve seen among co-workers)? This was really surprising. I figured it was per person.

    • Saguaro

      It is the same price whether you cover one kid or 10, because the cost is so inexpensive since the likelihood of payment is so low.

      • Anon

        I get that (for catastrophic things), but there are 2x the well-kid visits and check ups, which have me feeling like I am taking off at least a day a month just to run healthy kids to the doctor (never mind that in day care, they catch stuff and then have random things like hand, foot, and mouth, etc.). Surely there is a baseline of likely expenses even though it’s not like insuring a bunch of 50-YO overweight smokers who ride motorcycles.

        • Anon

          They just assume everyone has 2.5 kids. Those of us with 1 or 2 kids overpay and those with 3+ kids underpay. It averages out.

    • Anonymous

      This is normal, although I agree it would be more fair to be priced per person.

    • Anonymous

      Both my employer and my husband’s employer offer four pricing options: employee only, employee + spouse, employee + children, employee + spouse + children. The number of children does not matter. The family deductible and OOP max are always the same no matter how many people are covered (unless it’s only the employee, in which case the individual deductible and OOP max apply). As someone who only has one kid it kind of annoys me, but if I had multiple kids I’m sure I’d feel differently.

      What really bugs me is that we have to be on separate plans with separate premiums, deductibles, and OOP maximums because the employed spouse surcharge is so high. I wish health insurance weren’t tied to employment.

  14. Anon

    Whyyy is Murray’s website so glitchy and horrible!? I just want my fancy cheese!

  15. Anon

    Florence recs? Going in March. We have a preschooler but she does pretty well with adult-oriented stuff like museums as long as we keep it relatively short (and I’m guessing a gelato bribe will help ?). We will have 5 full days there. Does 3 days in the city and 2 day trips sound right? We have an excursion to an agriturismo for a kid-friendly pasta-making class, lunch and wine tasting one day. The other day trip should be to Siena, right?

      • Cat

        3 days exploring the town low-key, with 2 day-trip days, sounds like the perfect pace for me, FWIW. We had only just started planning a fall 2020 Italy trip when the world shut down but we were planning 5 days based in Florence with plenty of countryside excursions. (Our travel style is generally to prioritize the food and absorbing the feel, vs. packing in all the sights quickly.). So taking notes :)

      • Anon

        I hear that, but traveling with such a little kid necessitates a slower pace of travel, and after the pandemic we really just want to relax and drink and eat and sightsee at a leisurely pace. This is my fifth trip to Italy and my husband’s third and will definitely not be our last so we’re not really interested in adding more stops to the trip.

    • anne-on

      How much do you like art vs. how much are you looking to just eat gelato and chill? I minored in art history, studied abroad in Florence and we’re planning a family trip back for next year and I am currently culling my list of ‘must dos’ because you simply can’t fit all the churches/museums into 4 days if you’re super into art. If you’re a ‘sure we want to see the David but mostly we want to eat gelato and passegiata’ then 3 full days in the city is fine. The Academia isn’t huge and if you just want to see the David you can be in/out quickly. Fwiw I prefer Santa Croce to the Duomo (art in the Duomo isn’t as good imho and Santa Croce is less crowded) and you should probably see San Lorenzo. Your kiddo will probably enjoy the Science Museum (which is handily located right near a favorite Gelato place – Gelateria dei Neri and the MUCH less crowded Ponte alla Grazie). A guided tour of the Ufizi is probably a good idea (it is BIG) and this way you can hit the highlights. Siena or Pisa would be my day trip recommendations, but Rome is very close via high speed train – might be worth training down and flying out of the bigger airport down?
      Enjoy!!

      • Anon

        Thanks! We are definitely in the “see some art but mostly eat and chill” camp. We did consider flying into Rome but we would have one layover either way and we’ve already been to (and loved) Rome so we’re just going to Florence on this trip.

    • Nesprin

      I lived in Siena, so I’m completely biased. Siena’s an hour bus ride (don’t take the train- it drops off outside the city, whereas the bus lets out right in the center of town). The Siena Duomo is very distinct- fancy inlay floors + zebra striped exterior. The biggest museum in Siena is the italian wine museum, which sounds like it might not work for preschooler. FYI Siena is on top of a mountain with lots of up and down+ twisty streets, so be ready for walking a lot.

    • Anon

      I LOVE the Museum of the History of Science- I think it’s now called the Galileo museum. I think kids like it too!

      • Lobby-est

        Definitely the best kept secret in Florence- what an amazing place.

        Guided tour at David really was so much better than just gawking.

        Rick Steves has great suggestions. Florence is so walkable.

        I’d suggest Pisa for a side trip. Have fun!

    • Jz

      If you can make it to Antinori that’s where’d go for the wine tour.

      Florence isn’t what it was 10 years ago to be honest. The charm has been sort of destroyed but the over abundance of tourist shops catering to Americans.

      That said I think boboli would be very nice with a toddler. And piazza michelangelo is charming at night even when overrun with tourists.

    • Anonanonanon

      Late response but we did a similar trip sans toddler and had a great time with a similar setup (3 days Florence, 2 day trips). We did the day trip to Sienna and another place which was nice. But I heard a lot of people loved Lucca so consider it too. Early mornings were always better for the museums too.

    • Catherine

      We really enjoyed Lucca. Rented bikes and rode around on top of the old city wall. They even had a playground of some sort —I remember swings.

  16. Sarah

    I reject so many beautiful bags because they don’t have a zipper closure. Why, oh why, do so few bags have a zipper closure?

  17. Peachy

    Hi Kat,
    I have a random request… Can you do a blog post about how to research healthcare providers (doctors, hospitals, etc)? For example, I feel like it is hard to figure out whether one’s doctor is good or not and which hospital in my city I should use. It seems like that stuff is discovered by talking to people, but word of mouth seems too subjective an approach. Maybe there are some books you could recommend about it? The older I get, the more I think I need to make good choices in terms of who I use as my doctors and hospitals. I don’t know where to start, though.

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