Fabulous Firenze! We have just spent 3 glorious days in Florence, experiencing just about everything the city had on offer. Arriving at the train station with the hundreds of other travellers, we could already see it was going to be a busy and very warm few days. Our hotel was alongside the Ponte Vecchio, which meant easy walking distance to all the major sites plus great shopping!
Florence is a city that you could easily live in, and largely a pedestrian only zone, so no buses, trucks and few cars, with the exception of a few taxis . We unpacked and made our way to the main attraction of the city, the Duomo, or main cathedral. Its hard to miss because of it's size, and so very easy to find. The line to enter in the mid afternoon was too long so we decided on refreshments instead in the main piazza. A pizza and wine outside the Palazzo Vecchio helped us to plan the next few days and quench our thirst in the Tuscan heat. The major galleries and museums would have to wait until the next day as tourist groups had taken over most of them. Oh well, we decided to hit the shops instead. Better shopping here than Venice, if that's possible, with many markets and department stores like Zara . All the shopping is in a confined area, so it was easy to make our way to see everything, with largely Italian brands on offer.
We took on a late dinner and walked the city with everyone else, grabbed a gelati, with everyone else, and enjoyed the scenery at dusk, like everyone else.
Not hard to see why everyone loves Florence, an amazing sense of history, huge piazzas for people to mingle, everyone relaxed and enjoying themselves - happy days.
We headed out early the next day to visit the Duomo. It's the most amazing structure as you will see from the blog photos. White, green and pink tones of marble , arranged in rectangular panels to create a stunning facade of a truly spectacular and historical structure. The duomo is comprised of three major buildings, the basilica ( with it's huge orange dome), which dominates the city landscape, the campanile (clocktower) and the museum...all of which have the identical, intricate patterned facade. You could never get sick of looking at it and you can see why it is a focal point for locals and tourists alike who congregate to it, and sit in groups around or on it's steps just admiring it's beauty. We did this ourselves on numerous occasions.
The inside of the duomo is an absolute contrast to the facade. In fact it's almost the complete opposite. Clean white walls, no frescos,only a few statues , simple altar, and a wide open space...very different from the basilica in Venice with it's dark marble walls , gothic structure, and beautiful yet gloomy presence. The simplicity inside the Duomo has one exception....the marble flooring which are amazing circular tessellation's, as intricate and detailed as the facade. You can only wonder in amazement at the artisan skills that occured in the design of this masterpiece!
As fascinated as we were with the duomo, the Uffizi Gallery was always a must see while we were here.
We arrived early at the Uffizi Gallery on the last morning of our stay in Florence as usually it's a 90 minute wait to enter. Other the the Accademia museum in Florence which houses Michelangelo's statue of David, the Uffizi is the other most popular attraction in Florence . A domed walkway forms the approach on the major piazza and statues of all the major scholars of the time line the area. The gallery itself is known as the "gallery of statues" because of the 1000's of them that line the corridors. The entire collection including the renaissance paintings belonged mainly to Florence's extremely wealthy and powerful Medici family. The last heir, gifted all of these priceless works to the city of Florence before her death....smart woman.
Art works include Caravaggio, Michelangelo, Boticelli's famous painting of Venus and Canaletto's famous painting of Venice. All stunning and hard to believe that we are sooo close to masterpieces that are older than Australia's settlement.