Florence and Beyond

5 days in Florence

We are sitting in Dubrovnik Airport awaiting our plane for Prague, and trying to recall the highlights of Florence, now some 3 weeks ago.

Florence at night- you have just got to love it! 

As noted in the last post, Judy had taken us over the Col to Susa, Italy, on day 93 of the epic odyssey that is unfolding. (Yes, Jane is starting to hit the travel tolerance wall too. 
(We are now both really looking forward to our 8 weeks stay in a cottage in Devon in October/November.) 

We travelled Susa to Turin by local train, and then crossed the platform for the high speed train to Florence.  It was a great journey. City centre to city centre in 3 hours - 300 kph most of the way, in a well appointed “Business class” carriage.  All for 40 Euro each!  

The alternative, of flying, was both more expensive and with a 1hr journey into the centre from the airport at each end. Go the trains!

As we approached Florence we both realised that we were starting to feel the toll of extended travel.  From the peace and quiet of the Alps we had hurtled by bullet train into the bustle, thrust and ‘attitude’ of Florence.  Jane immediately recalled how much she prefers the French to the Italians.

Fortunately our Airbnb apartment was both central and peaceful.  We really can recommend this accommodation source option to our readers. The apartment owner welcomed us with a smile, ran us through how things worked, gave us lots of tips about the City, and left us to enjoy her place for the next week.

Cannot not include the David.

The days disappeared visiting a fraction of all there is to see in this wonderful city.  The weather was mostly hot, but not too hot.  We could also have shopped ’til we dropped with all the retail on offer, but restrained ourselves, apart for a new handbag for Jane.  

Highlights for Jane were happening upon a local flea market one evening, the Bargello Museum, with its many stately rooms and statues, the Sunday service at St Marks Anglican church in Santo Spirito, an evening concert of opera duets in the same church, and a wonderful meal on the last night.  The shaved truffle, porcini mushroom and parmesan salad was to die for. The Uffizi was also awesome but she was somewhat overwhelmed (see burn-out comments above).  In fact, if Jane had to choose between the Uffizi and an Alpine edelweiss she would choose the latter!

Ian just loved the place, and all its lively hustle and bustle.  His highlights were the life in the streets, where all the great examples of public place-making have been on functioning for the last 500 years. Car free streets and piazzas, lots of restaurant seating in the squares, and it has to be said, many thousands of tourists wandering around.  We were there as the full-on holiday season was ending, but it was still very busy.  Tickets to the Uffizi had to be booked a few days in advance, but the other galleries and Palaces, particularly the Pitti palace, were really not too busy.

Michaelangello - in oils, not marble. And what a frame!

Florence displays the most amazing collection of Renaissance art. This is essentially thanks to the  fabulously wealthy families of merchants and bankers, such as the Medicis, that kept the place going, in a Rebublican city state, without any King running around causing wars, which are very costly and wasteful exercises!  At one point in the Uffizi tour we stood in the room that had been the office of Nicolas Machiavelli - what history the Palace holds! 

Botecelli's Venus

The old city of Florence is a maze of narrow streets, with original 14th/15th/16th Century palaces, squares and churches at every twist and turn.  Now also full of both tourist shops and cafes and a local population to serve them.  There are very upmarket stores for all the big fashion names.  

Ponte Vecciho behind Jane, Uffizi on the right.

The galleries such as the Ufizzi had a much narrower collection of art than the artistic highlight of our last trip, the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, but in such depth. Dozens of early and renaissance pictures and statues.  Michaelangelo, Botticelli, Leonardo, Titian, Donatello, and many others whose names I have already forgotten, are among the famous artists and sculptors that were starting to make their names in Florence around the early 1500’s.  Interestingly the big names all went off to Rome to work on the Vatican when the local patronage first waned on the death of "Lorenzo the Magnificent" around 1520.  This is the same time that Henry VIII was still slumming it in the Tower and the old Westminster Palace in London.  Its sobering to realise that the still existing buildings being built then in Florence, are hundreds of years older than most “old” buildings today in London.  The wealth and the artistic patronage that flowed from it were simply staggering.

Truffle and porcini salad - delightful.

It's difficult in a blog like this to capture the overwhelm of Renaissance art that a too short trip can induce.  It's like you have to "eat the elephant" in just 4 days. Can't be done.  So we left with a taster of what Florence, and the surrounding towns have to offer, and we shall return to Tuscany another time to eat another leg. 

Speaking of which, my food highlights were the salad Jane noted earlier, which for me, was followed by roast sucking pig!  Also had a great steak served with a balsamic red wine sauce reduction that was just sooooo powerful!  All washed down with a few glasses of good red tempranillo and sangeovaise wines to boot. The pizza I has one lunch was however a disappointment.

We had 5 days of sightseeing and it was exhausting, walking around this very pedestrian friendly city from morning to night.  Most signage was in Italian and English, so we could make our way around easily enough, but we had the impression by the time we left that the Italians are pretty pissed off with their current lot.  The city was looking pretty run down and scruffy in many parts, (compared to post war shiny Dubrovnik Old Town- see later posts).

We left Florence on 4th September, hired a car and drove to Rome, via San Giminiano.  

the towers of San Giminano.

San Giminiano is a pocket-sized town about one hour's drive south west of Florence, on the way to Sienna.  It's Renaissance buildings are not as magnificent as Florence, but its walls are still intact and there was some curious rivalry between rich families in the 16C to see who could build the highest towers in town, which is already on a hill, so it looks quite amazing from the distant approaches.  

Again full of tourists in narrow streets. We did also find wild figs and blackberries in the walk around the walls, and bought some wonderful cheeses for supper that night at the hotel we stayed in in Rome Airport, before flying out the next morning to Croatia and the Adriatic sailing adventure.

It's called "the kiss!"

On the way south we also had a break in the drive at the port of Cicciviatia, on the Italian west coast above Rome, and saw the art above, given to the city by the USA , to commemorate the USA Navy visits during and post WWII!

But that, as they say about the past, is another country, so on to Croatia and another post.