Looked for art, found Florence. Good choice, us! (9-12 Septembre 2006)

On our way to Florence, we detoured and went into the countryside of Tuscany. We were a little sick of the autoroute and turned off down a very windy road in the hills. We drove and drove, without a map, avoiding the other cars (three lanes in a one lane street) and passing through villages. It was sunset. We were aiming for a lake we’d seen a sign for. Finally we found the next best thing (or maybe the real thing, who knows): a dam. It was very idyllic in the hills of Tuscany at sunset by the ‘lake’, so we went looking for the one thing to complete the picture-postcard: dinner. It was here that we finally found a real, home made Italian meal. And it was oh so good. Home made pasta and sauce as well as home made wine…mmmm (even home-made Italian: we couldn’t really understand anything, so we’re glad we ended up with something nice). Afterwards we packed up and sped down the hill in the dark, searching a little frantically for the previously-hated, now longed-for sight of the autoroute. Eventually we found it, and Florence, then our hotel, and our beds.



















Afterwards we packed up and sped down the hill in the dark, searching a little frantically for the previously-hated, now longed-for sight of the autoroute. Eventually we found it, and Florence, and eventually our hotel, and our beds.
The next day, we were ready to hit the museum routes again.
We started at the Dome where we climbed up tiny, unlit staircases that could only fit one person at a time and had no windows (which became especially difficult to deal with once oncoming traffic came…come to think of it it was a lot like driving in most old cities in Europe).
Anyway, after five hundred steps, this is what we saw:














It was a bit of a disappointment, because the inside was MUCH nicer.
We then headed off to the Medici’s palace. This family reintroduced Greek sculpture to Europe by founding an academy, where masters such as Donatello taught artists such as Michelangelo. They (or rather the Godfather (Don) Lorenzo the Magnificent) also reintroduced Greek philosophy and influenced Italian politics so much they were attacked and destroyed within three generations. The palace is stunning and even though it’s not a huge tourist attraction, it’s worth going to!! It has the family chapel inside with its own fresco, and beautiful sculptures everywhere.



















Florence is probably one of the most beautiful cities I’ve seen. I can’t believe its soo full of tourists yet maintains some form of tranquility about it.

































I even found this popular add on the back of buses that looks very similar to Em.



















We managed to fit the tourist bill exactly in Florence: cameras on necks and maps in hand, we got the first bus in the morning, and the last at night, then each night scanned the reams of brochures we’d picked up to really make the most of our time the next day. For May and I that meant having time to stroll through some ancient gardens, visit the temporary nightclub near the hotel a bit, and drink a few coffees. But of course we also saw the Uffizi Gallery, which was pretty impressive (and incidentally has really good coffee). There’s an awful lot to see, including some really famous (Botticelli’s Venus), some a little disturbing (i.e. a little Goya), and a really interesting Leonardo da Vinci exhibition on the way out.

We can now say that we were in Firenze for three days, and survived. And in fact we enjoyed it immensely. But we haven’t ‘done’ it, nor Italy as a whole, by any means. There’s simply too much to see. Italian students of art have free access to the Uffizi gallery, and they can have it: they need it. Pizza delivery to gallery 35 would be appreciated too, for those who simply can go no further. It’s hard to quit at the end, and the philosophy of ‘next time’ plays a big part in letting go. But after my first time I have learned that you can buy average pizza in Italy, I can’t speak French with an Italian accent and get away with it, and (contrary to what a traveler told me recently) not every city looks the same.