Cathedrals to Cocktails

Today was a very big day, starting with a free walking tour of Florence. I had deliberately avoided the main city centre because I wanted my first experience of it to be through a tour, and I’m very glad I did. By the end of the tour, I had somehow added even more things to my already growing list of things to see. Our guide was incredibly knowledgeable about the history and culture of Florence and gave us plenty of insight into how best to spend our time in the city. He began with an overview of Florence as a whole and emphasised the importance of spending some time south of the Arno. This reinforced my decision to spend my first day there, and it sounded like I had managed to see just about everything worth seeing on that side of the river. We then began exploring the religious heart of Florence, starting with the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, Brunelleschi’s Dome, the Gates of Paradise, and Giotto’s Bell Tower. It was incredible! The sheer size and grandeur of these monuments are almost impossible to describe. Knowing how old they are and understanding the scale of what people managed to construct hundreds of years ago is difficult to comprehend. I had seen the buildings from a distance, but I wasn’t prepared for what it would be like to stand directly in front of them. The most perplexing part is the way you can walk through the small, narrow streets of Florence with almost no indication of what is waiting ahead of you. Then, suddenly, your entire field of vision is consumed by these colossal structures that seem to appear from nowhere. You can’t help but stand there in awe. This was something I completely underestimated before coming to Florence, and I still don’t think I can properly describe the feeling.

Our guide did a great job of explaining the history and engineering behind the cathedral. Cathedrals are traditionally built in the shape of a cross, while the octagon is also an important symbol within Catholicism. The Florentines wanted to incorporate this symbolism into their cathedral, but they initially had no idea how to construct the enormous dome required to complete the eastern end. So they simply left it unfinished. The rest of Santa Maria del Fiore was built in preparation for the day someone finally figured out how to solve the problem. Eventually, Brunelleschi developed a solution, constructing a spherical dome inside and enclosing it with the larger octagonal exterior structure. This allowed them to finally complete the cathedral, and the famous dome was subsequently named after him. I’ve already booked tickets to climb between the two domes, which involves more than 400 steps through some incredibly confined spaces. The view from the top has to be one of the best in Florence, so I’m very excited to see it.

We then left the religious centre behind and made our way to Piazza della Repubblica, which represents the economic centre of the city. Our guide explained some of Florence’s history, particularly its brief period as the capital of Italy. He also spent some time explaining the cultural differences between different parts of Italy, including Tuscany, Naples, Sicily, and elsewhere. I hadn’t really appreciated how different the regions could be, so this was particularly interesting to me. Though it makes sense with how young of a country Italy is but with so much history. He also showed us the former boundaries of Florence and explained how the city had expanded over time. Seeing the different stages of the city’s growth mapped out made it surprisingly easy to visualise how Florence had developed. We passed over the Ponte Vecchio as part of the tour. I had visited it the previous day but seeing it with a guide gave me a completely different appreciation for its history. During the plague, people began to notice a connection between the presence of rats and insects and the spread of disease. As a result, the city eventually concentrated butchers and similar businesses along the bridge, allowing them to dispose of their waste directly into the river and supposedly reduce the number of disease-carrying animals within the city.

Finally, we made our way to the cultural heart of Florence at Piazza della Signoria, home to the Uffizi Gallery, Palazzo Vecchio, and Loggia dei Lanzi. This was an incredible experience in itself, as you could almost feel the history of the city surrounding you. Our guide explained the influence of the Medici family, a dynasty of incredibly wealthy bankers and politicians who effectively controlled Florence for generations. Eventually, the family died out, but the final heir left their enormous collection of possessions to the city of Florence under the condition that it could never be sold, removed from Florence, or taken into private ownership. That decision is a huge part of why Florence still possesses such an extraordinary collection of historical and cultural artefacts. We finished the tour overlooking another replica of David, and our guide once again gave us some fascinating insight into Michelangelo’s famous sculpture. Michelangelo was not only an artist but also deeply interested in science and human anatomy. Unlike many artists who exaggerated the human form, he took great care to make David anatomically realistic. The proportions, muscles, and veins were all carefully considered. There were, however, two deliberate inaccuracies. The first was the size of David’s hands and feet, which are considerably larger than they would be on a real person. This was intentional. Michelangelo expected the statue to be viewed from around 50 metres below (as it was originally constructed to sit atop the Santa Maria del Fiore), so he exaggerated these features to ensure they would remain visible from a distance. The second was somewhat more… personal. According to the story in the bible, David would have been circumcised. However, Michelangelo based his depiction on the Greek artistic tradition, where the male figure was generally represented differently, and so David was left uncircumcised. The attention to detail and anatomical accuracy makes the sculpture even more fascinating to me, and it has made me even more determined to see the original while I’m in Florence. And that was just the morning.

After the tour, I went back to my usual strategy of wandering randomly through the streets. This was essentially my first proper exploration of the northern side of the city, so there was still plenty to discover. Just about every street seemed to contain some hidden monument or historic building that I never would have expected to find tucked away among the narrow roads. I first stumbled across the markets, although they mostly sold Italian leather, so I wasn’t exactly in the market for anything. A few streets later, I came across the Basilica di Santa Maria Novella. At the time, I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to spend the €7 entry fee, but I’m very glad I did. Huge altars, stained glass, painted walls and ceilings, artwork, incredible architecture, and statues covered almost every surface of the church. It was magnificent. Having simply stumbled across this Basilica while wandering the streets of Florence, knowing that Italy has thousands of churches of varying sizes and importance, really put into perspective just how much wealth and influence the Catholic Church accumulated over the centuries. Even outside the Basilica itself, there was an outdoor area containing tombs and artworks, followed by a small museum displaying artefacts and clothing from different periods and various popes.

By this point, it was afternoon and I was already completely knackered. With dinner plans later that evening, I decided to head home. I began walking along a riverside path, although it was barely what I would call a park. It was essentially a long asphalt path with trees on one side and the river on the other. Eventually, another path branched off that looked more like an actual park. As I entered, a man across the park started yelling at me, asking if I wanted to chat. I tried to keep walking, but he eventually caught up with me.He was friendly enough, but it quickly became apparent that he was mostly trying to sell me drugs. I declined and tried to get out of there as quickly as possible. That was the end of the interaction, and I continued walking. Eventually, though, I noticed the same guy was now walking behind me. I’m sure it was probably just a coincidence, but it seemed like a pretty good reason to cut my walk short and head home. Later that evening, I caught up with a local as an opportunity to experience some Italian nightlife, something I hadn’t really had the chance to do yet, and to see Florence after dark. Italy is a very interesting place. We walked between a few bars and stopped for some food, but what surprised me most was the amount of drinking that happens in the streets. Many of the buildings are too small to accommodate large crowds, so people simply spill out onto the streets with their drinks. It was a little dirty, but also incredibly interesting. Walking home around 2am was another completely different experience. The streets were quieter but beautifully lit, and there were still plenty of people out despite the late hour. One of the strangest things to me was learning that the woman I was with lived maybe 20 metres from the Uffizi Gallery. All these narrow, tall buildings that I had been admiring throughout my time in Florence were actually people's homes. I found it difficult to wrap my head around living directly across the road from one of the most significant art galleries in the world.

Her building itself was also part of Florence’s history. It had been badly damaged during a Mafia bombing targeting the Uffizi Gallery, an attack that killed three innocent people. In Florence, even the smallest streets, buildings, and houses seem to have a story behind them. History isn’t confined to museums or monuments here—it’s built into almost every corner of the city.

And that is something I’m beginning to really appreciate.Read more