Where's Zebedee, Florence?

  Florence, Italy
Monday, July 7, 2008

Arrived in Florence after a good journey. Had to pay  €30 on top of our passes to book a seat on the eurostar express train from Bologna. We could have gone the long way but decided against it. Waited in a bit of a queue to book the train from here to Roma for when we leave on Wednesday.

Walked the 20 minutes to the hotel through very hot and busy streets but it was okay because we stopped a few times. The first sight of the Duomo in Florence just took our breathe away. Even more spectacular than St Marks in Venice. It could be because it is so close to you and the square is small.

When we got to the hotel we realised we had 3 flights of windy stairs to climb. Oh well, good for us I suppose!

Hot mamma - arriving at hotel

When we got there we were pleasantly surprised, the lovely hotel manager gave us a free cup of tea!. We have learned on this trip not to judge a book by its cover with regards to hotels and hostels. The hotel is lovely and ...wait for it...WE'VE GOT AIR CONDITIONING!!!

View from our hotel room

The room has a view of the Duomo and we are close enough to everything but far enough away to be quieter.

On the street where we live

The guide book suggested that the best time to visit museums if you haven't booked is in the evening so we thought we'd give it a go to see Michaelangelo's David. We fully expected some queues but at 5.45pm with an hour to go we sailed through. €10 entry but worth every penny. There were other interesting paintings and a musical instrument exhibition but when you enter the gallery containing David, you forget all the other stuff.

No pictures can do justice to seeing him in the flesh, because that is what it is like, flesh. The most impressive thing for us was the detail at the back of the shoulders and the tendons on the leg as his weight is shifted to one side. Completely amazing. You could swear he is breathing. From the sublime to the ridiculous, on the way to see David, we were right royally ripped off. Two fresh orange juices...how much? Try €14, £11. So that's the last time that'll happen.

We hunted around for a reasonably priced restaurant but they cannot be found in the main tourist Piazzas but we did stumble on a great restaurant called Ristorante Vecchia Firenze. on the Borgo Degli Albizi. We can recommend it. Great home cooking and a reasonable price. The other restaurants were charging €20 for a hamburger and chips. This one does a set menu of three courses for €14. Great stuff! I had a risotto which was cooked to order and sublime.Mum had tagliatelle with salmon. She says it was braw!

We had a good sleep in our air conditioned room. In fact I had to sleep under a cover last night! When I awoke,I followed the guidebook advice and phoned the Florence booking service and booked our tickets for the Uffizi Gallery tomorrow to jump the queues. An extra €3 well spent. This morning after a light breakfast we wandered to the Ponte Vecchio (we did not throw ourselves below - singers in-joke!).

Us at the Ponte Vecchio

The famous Ponte Vecchio

It is so cute with the buildings and the shops. I bought a pair of earrings and mum and I both bought little purses.

Shops on the Ponte Vecchio

We wandered around aimlessly really just soaking up the atmosphere away from the main tourist drag. We popped into a lovely little church just for a look. It was built in 1066 and extended in the sixteenth century. It is off the Piazza Pitti.

Residential area of florence

We had a nice lunch and walked for miles, it seems. We ended up in a residential area up a hill and dead end so had to walk back.We really have had a lot of exercise on this trip. We have walked everytime we can, trying to really soak up the atmosphere of the places. I can highly recommend it.

That evening, after our obligatory seista, we tried to go back to our restaurant but it was full so we actually found a better one. Il Teatro. We had these lovely little canapes which we thought were chicken liver pate and I commented that they were very similar to haggis without the spices, turns out they were spleen on toast!!!!And, by the way, forgot to mention, we actually ate some horse meat in Verona at the end of our stay there. It was smoked and shredded and a bit like dried up corned beef. Not a huge hit but we survived it, so if you're wondering what happened to Shergar...........

We went to the Uffizzi gallery and saw Botticellis and Da Vincis and Goyas and Van Goghs and Rubens. All housed in the most amazing building. We have actually seen some spectacular things here in Florence. Even just wandering around the streets. You turn a corner and something beautiful is there. The city is very touristy and can be a bit dirty apart from the special buildings and areas but not to be missed.

After a wee rest, I went for my singing lesson. It was brilliant. She is an amazing singing teacher and singer and pointed me in the right direction with regards repertoire and areas for improvement. I am having another lesson tomorrow, she has invited me to her house for this so I think that is a good sign, I mustn't be crap! And I am officially a Lyrico Puro Soprano.

I will let you know in the next entry from Rome how that lesson goes.

Oh big changes afoot, we are now not going to Nice or Carcassonne. Instead we are going to stay for a while with a good friend of mine that I haven't spent much time with in ages. She stays in geneva. (Rowana for those in the know!). Any messages for her, let me know.

Roma next stop!!