Florence - Firenza

Florence Day 1

It took about 1hur to drive inland to Florence, we arrived at the outskirts of town and set out course for Camping Internazionale – a campground in the hills overlooking Florence. We had been a bit worried as their website had not bookings for 3 weeks but when we arrived there was plenty of space and we had our pick of shaded terraced pitches. Even better the toilets had seats and toilet paper! AND the showers had fully adjustable hot water (as in a flick and mix) WOW!

Lunch at the campsite

We parked , made some lunch and then bought some bus tickets into the city. The ride took about 30mins to arrive at the main train station. From here we walked the major streets arriving at the Piazza Del Duomo, the square and home of the impressive Florence Duomo (Cathedral) which is actually called Cattedral di Santa Maria del Fiore (The Cathedral of Mary of the Flower aka Florence).

The Duomo

We got some shots of the exterior of the church made from red, green and white marble, originally thinking Italy was really taking patriotism to the extreme we discover that the colours represent Faith(white), Hope (Green) and Love (red) what will be left at the end of days when Christ comes again – very symbolic (but i still cant help thinking the Italians just made that up).

Us at the duomo (perfecting out up the nose self portraits for tall buildings)

The famous dome of Florence

From here we continued our stroll down to Piazza del Signoria where a version of Micahelangelo’s David stands. We took happy snaps with Dave posing as his namesake and also viewed the other statues in the Loggia della Signora.

David

Dave and David
David - Orginating from the Italian word poser...

From here we headed back in the direction of the train station via the Mercato di San Lorenzo, the leather market surrounding the Cattedral di San Lorenzo and Capelle Medici (Medici Chappel). Here we met Michelangelo (an artist in his own right) leather manuafacturer, a charming Italian who managed to sell us a lovely leather handbag (for me not Dave). We were proud of our haggling skills and came out with a good deal.

My kind of bicycle - it was sooo pretty!

After all of this excitement we decided to call it a day and head back by bus to the campground.

Extra Large peroni for Dave 1/2 L bottles



Florence Day 2.

Today began more slowly than we’d planned. We went through our usual morning routine but when we got to starting Mulder to recharge the batteries he had other plans. Turns out the battery had run too low to start so we had to call Spaceships (van rental place) in the UK and be instructed how to jump start the engine. Good news was that because of the duel battery system 1 battery can restart the other without needing a second car.

With Mulder defibrillated and out of the woods we were free to venture back into Florence to contine sightseeing. First stop Ponte Vecchio! Thisbridge across the Arno river used to have butcher shops lining either side of it, but in the reign of the Medici they decided to kick the butchers off and replace them with jewellers – the reason: This was the main bridge in and out of Florence for the Medicis’ and they wanted it to be lined with gold and silver of course.

Jewellery shopping at the Ponte Vecchio



Posing on the bridge

After a lunch of pizza and calzones we lined up to enter the Duomo. The line looked long but moved quickly. We were harassed by ladies selling shawls and in our efforts to shoo them away we didn’t realise it was because i had bare shoulders and wouldn’t be allowed to enter. Luckily we rummaged in the trusty backpack and found 1 of our shammy come beach towel and now come shawl (thanks to mum for buying these for us, these have been very handy for more than 1 reason).

Wow! Look at my pizza and calzone!

Me in my sexy shawl

). We went on the guided tour led by an exuberant English girl who made the thing very exciting. Although very lavish from the outside, the inside of the cathedral is quite plain. The main features being the tiled floor (which we realised when we looked at a postcard later on) and the frescoed interior of the dome itself. One of the most interesting stories about the building of the duomo was that the dome itself. A Florentine  named Brunelleschi won a design competition to become the builder of the dome, the size of which hadn’t been seen since before the dark ages. The fact was that humans had lost the documentation and knowledge of how to build such structures, so they didn’t anymore. Brunelleschi being a renaissance man was determined to regain this skill and in the process developed floating scaffolding (which is still used today) saving the lives of 1000’s of workers. In medieval times and before, it was generally accepted that around 1/3 of workers who started construction on one of these megastructures would die onsite (OH&S wasn’t really big back then).

Inside of the Duomo

Inside of the dome

Lighting a candle for Bob and Michael

We walked the streets of Florence a little longer soaking up the late afternoon atmosphere, bought groceries for dinner and headed for home. Back at the campground we met Dutch couple Geert and Kirsten – he had offered assistance earlier that day when mulder was in trouble as he is a classic car mechanic. We agreed to meet tomorrow night for post dinner drinks.

Taking some shelter from the coming storm in an Irish pub - very Italian

August 1st - thinking of you Uncle Bob having a Guiness!

Florence Day 3

Today we had our hearts and minds set on visiting the revered Uffizi  gallery. We had been warned there would be cues and we weren’t disappointed  - waiting in line for around 2 ½ hours to buy tickets. If going again I would consider paying 4€ per ticket extra to prebuy them from the museum office – it really takes it out of you standing for that long and affects your later experience in the gallery.

The only pic we have of the Uffizi - not very interesting from the outside but unfortunately we would have been dismembered by elderly Italian women if we took any pictures inside :(

The cue... eeek

That being said we were really glad we waited to get in and see the amazing collections of renaissance art and sculptures – mainly Italian spanning the times where Sieanese, Florentine and Venetian artists were in popularity. Seeing works of art that are so old, grand and generally massive was amazing. Our favourites of course were Botecelli’s Birth of Venus and Primavera but other works by Leonardo Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Rembrandt, Donatello, Bernini and Lippi (these are just the really famous ones).

Mmmmm Chocolate torte!

After the Uffizi we were exhausted (5-6 hours in total) and made our way back to the campground. We were too tired to even think about cooking so headed to the campground restaurant/bar for dinner. I had yummy scallopini bianci with salad and dave had porcini mushroom risotto.

After dinner we planned for an early night but we met back up with Geert and Kirsten at their tent – the boys drinking large beers and the girls limoncello til 2-3am (so much for the early night). But we did gain some great insight and suggestions for the itinerary for the rest of our trip particularly of Holland, Germany and the rest of Italy.

It was with great regret (& Dave sporting a slight hangover) that we farewelled Florence, one of our favourite cities so far.

We went to the Piazza del Michaelangeolo a square set in the hills overlooking Florence for 1 last look athe  city from afar. Here there was yet another replica of Michaelangelo’s David – a bronze version this time – the Florentines are certainly proud of this city treasure!

Florence from Piazza Michaelangiolo

Say ciao Florence