Florence

Vicki’s favourite city. Possibly mine too. There is so much to like about this city starting with the lack of modern buildings which makes the whole place (mainly 5-storey brick or stone buildings with tiled roofs) look much as it must have hundreds of years ago (if you excuse the traffic and TV aerials) and with just the major churches standing out.  Hard to imagine a better film set. Everywhere you look there is another museum, statue, 15th Century Palazzo, or tourist. There is very little traffic too with only taxis, service vehicles and emergency services being allowed in, plus the numerous locals out on cycles competing with the foot traffic. And what foot traffic – the downside to being a place that people want to visit is that people want to visit. As well as the hordes of young foreigners attending the various international art schools, there are tour groups everywhere. It is hard to walk in a straight line down any street without avoiding a tour leader waving a flag and speaking into a microphone, followed by a herd of lemmings with their earpieces firmly attached.

We were lucky in having an Airbnb apartment just a few metres away from the Arno river near the centre of town. The apartment was in one of the old buildings with 14^th Century “features”, though lucky these didn’t stretch to the amenities - these were tastefully modern. “Lucky” is relative as we found that there was a nightclub underneath us plus the noise of traffic reverberating between the stone buildings kept us awake most nights.

The ceiling of the Duomo

We had hoped that Joan would accompany us up the 400-odd steps to the top of the dome of the Duomo and had encouraged her to get herself fit for this over the last few months. As it turned out she was a little worn out by the previous travelling and left us to it, which turned out to be a wise choice. For a bargain 10 euros you get a 24-hour ticket to see inside the Duomo, climb to the top and also to ascend the neighbouring bell-tower.





 Though last year we had climbed

Giotto's Campanile (bell tower)
completed 1359

the dome we were keen to redo it with Julie so, avoiding the lengthy queue to enter the cathedral (apart from its immensity there isn’t much to see inside) we took the side entrance and climbed up inside the dome. The steps are narrow and at times you have to wait while others squeeze past in the opposite direction. Luckily there aren’t many wide people attempting it! As an attraction there are several highlights: one is walking around the balcony inside the dome looking way down at the people on the floor below and being able to admire the ceiling paintings very close up – and the large cracks too! Coming from Christchurch we just think “one good earthquake …”. The next highlight is squeezing up the steps between the two layers of dome – to reduce the weight the dome is actually two, an inner and an outer. And the views from the top, as it is the highest point in the city, are wonderful. As we were feeling so good after this climb we finished by climbing the 414 steps of the bell-tower! We were very ready for lunch by this time.

Luckily we have already toured the Uffizi so we weren’t tempted to spend hours queuing followed by hours wandering eternal corridors of Renaissance paintings … so this time we tried the Pitti Palace, a very imposing stone building that turned out to be elegant inside. Each succeeding invader had added their own touches, from the Medicis to the French and the Austrians. As you wander the corridors each state room has grander and grander painted ceilings. There is a rather cold looking bathroom made for Napoleon with a (short) marble bath in it. And as well as all the Renaissance paintings adorning the walls there was an incredibly good “modern” section, principally 19^th Century French and European artists.

Just another [stunning!] room in the Pitti Palace

Napoleon's bathroom

We had arranged to take Marina (our host from last year) out to dinner to her favourite pizza restaurant, where she had taken us on our last evening in Florence. She was staying at her townhouse so we met her there for aperitifs (with her son Lorenzo) which was very interesting for Joan and Julie to see inside one of the grand old houses. Last year we had learnt that less is more, i.e. the simple pizzas have so much flavour, like a Margherita, that adding more ingredients doesn’t help. On the way home Marina drove us up to the Pizzale Michangelo for the beautiful views over Florence by night. Like all in Italy who grow olives, Marina is concerned about this year’s crop. There is so much olive fly about most of the Mediterranean is doomed to have poor crops. They have been advised to pick very early while there are still a few olives left on the trees. Once the fly has laid its eggs in the olive they ripen very quickly (turn black) and fall off.

Despite the numerous historic attractions of Florence, the girls probably enjoyed the markets most. Florence is famed for leather and, alongside the numerous high class shops selling coasts and bags and gloves, there are many market stalls offering goods at very reasonable prices. Vicki came away with (only) a leather jacket and belt, to go with her leather gloves from San Remo (where the gloves were much less expensive than those in Florence).  She's [almost] looking forward to returning to cooler climes so she'll be able to wear the jacket and gloves!

So after a noisy and crowded sensory experience in Florence it was time to pick up a hire car and escape to the Tuscan countryside.