Florence

Kent and I had heard from a few friends how great Florence was going to be. I even altered our vacation to have 1 additional day in Florence. I knew that Michelangelo's David was there, the Uffizi gallery, Italy's most prestigious gallery, and a few other famous places. I did research the city well so I felt prepared. We arrived into Florence in the early afternoon by bus. This was an easier route than taking the train from Siena. The area around the station was dirty feeling, so I was glad once we finally hailed a taxi to take us to our hotel. Our hotel was great. It was about a mile outside of the main downtown, but easily walkable. It was nice to be just a little bit removed from the crowds. Crowds...this is what I remember from Florence. SO many people. It was different than the crowds of Rome as these were touristy crowds that were obviously on some sort of tour in Italy. The young kids and their school outings was by far the worst in Florence. I felt over-run and as if I was no longer in a "special place." This was not the city that I was prepared for. Kent and I really did not like Florence. When we tell people this they either are shocked, or in complete agreement. It is a city that is far more commercial than the other cities we went to. We did have some fun highlights though and I am glad we went there. I personally do not need to return.

After checking into our hotel we grabbed some sandwiches and ate in the park and went to the Accademia Gallery that houses Michaelangelo's David. I was smart and had pre-booked our reservation. When you enter the gallery and pass through the metal detectors you take a right into the first wing and down the corridor is David. It is amazing, and shocking that it was the first thing to view in the museum, especially after our visit through the Vatican Museum. As you approach David you walk through unfinished sculptures that Michaelangelo never finished, they were really cool to see faces, hands, feet emerging from the rock. The sculpture of David is beyond words. First of all, it is big, like HUGE. I had no idea it had this height and width. I kept circling it and just could not get over how big it was. The museum has a wonderful corridor it houses the sculpture in which helps to make it a special way of viewing it. After some time we went through the rest of the museum and realized that David is the true reason to visit. There was nothing else that was honestly magical, very bland, and many copies of other sculptures. Copies..who wants to see a copy!

We left the museum and sort of looked at each other like...now what? We literally finished so much earlier than I had thought we would. I figured this would at least get us through to dinner, but nope, done by 3:30pm. We decided to walk around town and ended up climbing to the top of Giotto's Bell Tower, a true bell tower that is connected to Florence's prized Duomo. It was approximately 350 steps to the top, and once again, I found us huffing and puffing to the top. It was worth it though, the view was beautiful.




The Bell Tower




After we left the Bell Tower we walked around some more and went to the Ponte Vecchio, the oldest bridge in Florence that is located on the Arno river which runs through the heart of Florence. The bridge use to have butcher shops all along it but the famous wealthy family in Florence decided it should have shops of gold, which is still does to this day. I purchase a small pair of earrings here, but did enjoy the beautiful jewels.



Florence's weather put a bit of a damper on our trip. Our first day was grey and cloudy and put a bit of kink into our day. The second day we were in Florence we luckily had great weather, as this was the day we rented our Fiat 500. I found a great tour that was listed on Trip Advisor and we had a blast, it was by far the best thing we did in Florence. There was a total of 4 fiats, with the lead car containing the tour guides. We drove through Florence and they had a walkie-talkie speaker system in each car so as we were driving they would explain the buildings, monuments etc. The people in the town would wave, cheer and take our picture, it was hilarious. Kent did a great job at maneuvering the very tricky manual engine. I believe our car was from the late 1960's. So much fun!!!










We went to a beautiful villa a few miles outside of Florence and into the hills of Tuscany. It was amazing. Here we enjoyed a great spread of food and a taste of the wines that were produced here. One of our dumbest, but now OK decisions, was to buy 1/2 a case of wine. After we purchased it and started driving back to the city I was thinking to myself, "how are we going to carry this around?" That wine was heavy, and a pain in the butt! Now we have it at home though and it feels special and we will someday enjoy it and go down memory lane.

We cascaded back through the hills and stopped for one more beautiful view of the city. Kent was feeling super confident with the car by now, so I didn't feel very stressed anymore; he did great. We had a really fun group of people on our tour and the operators couldn't have been more pleasant. If anyone makes it to Florence soon, this is the thing to do.



As we started walking back to our hotel, lugging our wine, we finally found a shop that sold original artwork. It was an artists work space and when we walked in her boyfriend did his best to help us. He only spoke a little English so it was difficult to communicate with him. Kent found a piece of art that he really liked. The price was steep, especially since we needed to pay cash. We told him we would return the next day and went back to our hotel. Again we had a little nap and reading time.


The next day we were scheduled to go to the Uffizi Gallery. We had reservations, which was a must and started to go throughout the museum. I am not the best at museums. I don't understand the long lines and the rushing to get from room to room. I wish there was more narrative, but now you must pay for everything. The audio guide was OK, but nothing great. We did see Bottichelli's Birth of Venus, which was beautiful and on such a grand scale. An entire wall of one beautiful item. So fabulous!


After the museum it started pouring, the type of rain where it feels like a giant bucket is being dropped on your head. Kent wanted to stop by the artist's gallery again and luckily she was in. We did a little negotiating to purchase the painting and I feel bad, but I lied and told her I could only get 700 euros out of the ATM. I had yet to really barter in Italy, but this was a good deal for her. Plus we had to have the canvas taken off the frame (so she was able to keep the frame, which made me feel better about stiffing her 100 euros). Kent and I had to make a mad dash though for the ATM and found ourselves probably going 1/2 a mile to find one that would work!!! We were soaking wet, but we had the artwork Kent had been hoping he would find in Italy. He was a happy guy.

Florence was a mixed bag for us. I think if the weather would have been better we might have liked it a bit more. It was sort of average food and nothing spectacular (at least for us). Florence seemed like a wonderful place for a person who had never left the US before. People were very friendly and everyone spoke English, or at least enough that anyone could get by. We were very excited though to hop our next train to Venice!