Florence

We arrived in Florence on a nice, warm day. I quickly realized something very frustrating about the Med. in the fall: The sun is beautiful and pleasant, but stepping into the shade will drop your temp. by A LOT. Also, the nights get cold cold cold. Who cares, right? Sleep at night and see the beautiful Florentine art and architecture during the day! RIGHT, except that we slept in a tent.

A tent

The camping area where we stayed was right next to Piazza Michelangelo, which is on the south side of the Arno River, just a little bit out of the way of the tourist attractions, but with a beautiful view of the city.

Florence at night from Piazza Michelangelo

Our first afternoon in Florence we went to the Pitti Palace. I had stopped by here four years ago, but had only seen the gorgeous Boboli gardens instead of going into the former royal residence. This time, Alan and I went inside and saw some elaborately decorated rooms with lots of art done by Italian Renaissance artists.

The rest of the evening and the next day we wandered around Florence, which is a compact city full of ancient buildings and lively piazzas. And tourists, of course, even in October.

We made the obligatory stop at the famous cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. Alan climbed up its bell tower, constructed by Giotto, to see the view of the city. We also marveled for a while at Ghiberti’s baptistery doors across from the church, and ducked into the museum which holds a lot of the original art created for the cathedral, bell tower, and baptistery.

Santa Maria del Fiore and its bell tower (view from Orsanmichele)

Baptistery door panel depicting the near-sacrifice of Isaac

We spent some time camped out in front of some beautiful churches, like the Basilica di Santa Maria Novella, which was covered by scaffolding the last time I was in Florence, and the Basilica di Santa Croce. We looked at the sculpture in the Medici chapels, in the granary-cum-chapel Orsanmichele, and in Piazza della Signora. And we spent the extra bucks to reserve a time to enter the Uffizi Museum. Honestly, we were both a little bit disappointed in the Uffizi, maybe because we had just been to Madrid’s Prado Museum, which was bigger and more user-friendly, although it probably had fewer super-famous works.

Alan with Giambologna’s sculpture “Hercules with Nessus the Centaur” in Piazza delle Signora.

Forgive me for continually alluding to the last time I visited Florence (and Rome). Alan had to. The most interesting thing to me about visiting Florence twice in the same decade was seeing the progress of restorations around the city. The Medici Chapels, for example, had made no progress.