Florence-Firenze: Birthplace of the Renaissance
Trip Start
Dec 27, 2007
1
79
80
Trip End
Dec 28, 2008
Florence,
Tuscany,
Italy
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Florence - the birthplace of the Renaissance. It seemed a typical Italian city on arrival, however its Duomo was anything but typical: white with dark green horizontal stripes and a huge, orange dome (terracotta tiles). Far more impressive from the outside than the inside. It's Baptistry has these large, heavy wooden doors with 10 panels of gold plate, carved in bas-relief with scenes from The Bible.
It wasn't until we took ANOTHER hop-on/off tour and ended up at Piazza Michaelangelo, overlooking the city that we got a sense of how pretty it is. It has the River Arno running through the middle, with several stylish bridges crossing it. One, Ponte Vecchio is lined on both sides by shops that jut out over the river. Very quaint. Of
course the ever-present terracotta-tiled roves make for a lovely contrast against the lush green of the valley littered with cypress trees. The Tuscan countryside really is as lovely as the legend. I love that Diane Lane movie, Under the Tuscan Sun, and I think Liv Tyler goes to Tuscany in Stealing Beauty. Anyway, like I said, I wasn't disappointed. From the Piazza, the features of the cityscape are the massive orange dome of the Duomo, but, complementing it is the smaller and more graceful turquoise cupola of the city mosque.
After a day of sightseeing, we decided to do a day trip to the little medieval town of Siena the next morning. It's a very sweet little place, with narrow streets and tall, old stone buildings. To get into the huge main piazza, you have to walk through little tunnels that are lined with tiny shops. The piazza itself is massive and on a slope, surrounded on all sides by 500-year-old buildings. It's different from any of the others I've seen. Siena's Duomo is also very striking, in the same style as that of Florence, but with a far more ornate frontage. It was a different style of town to any we'd seen so far, so really nice to go there.
Next on the list for day trips was the Wonky Pillar of Pisa. The town itself isn't anything special - ok, another nice little Tuscan town, but everyone goes there to see The Tower. So we went there and saw it. Heaps of people there of course. It was a good time to go as it is being cleaned and restored, but thankfully they didn't have much scaffolding up so the sunny side looked lovely and white. Apart from being 5m from vertical at the top, the architecture itself is actually really delicate and unusual, so it's aesthetically pleasing on top of the novelty factor. After having a good look I lay down in the sun and actually went to sleep for an hour or so! Ah, what a life. When I woke up, all the people who had been sitting next to me but in the shade cast by the tower were way down at the other end of the lawn, moving with the shade.
Last day in Florence involved a trip to the Uffizi Gallery, Italy's most important and famous art gallery. It's made up mostly of the private collection of the powerful Medici family who governed the city for about 300 years. When Napolean conquered the city in the 1800s he knicked off with a lot of great stuff, now seen in the Louvre. However, there are still a lot of famous and fantastic works in there. I had to queue for an hour and a half to get in, but once I did, the place was huge. To be really honest, I was a bit over all the medieval religious art, although all that gold is pretty sparkly. I enjoyed seeing some more of Michelangelo's works, as I could actually appreciate how his style and use of colour was quite different to a lot of the paintings from that period. There was a whole room or two devoted to Botticelli, including the lovely Birth of Venus. I liked Venus of Urbino, by can't-remember-who. A beautiful nude which Mark Twain unfortunately called "the vilest, crudest, most vulgar work of art ever created," or something to that effect. My favourite painting in the whole place was by someone I'd never heard of and can't remember - Herri someone I think. That's the way it goes sometimes isn't it?
Well, 5 nights in "Firenze" was just enough to see what we needed to and get a feel for the city, surrounding towns and Tuscan countryside. Next comes Venice and I'm full of anticipation.
