Florence..yeah...na?

We were at the Siena railway station by 8am for our train for Florence – this was a “Treno Pronto” which meant that is was a fast train although it still took about an hour and a half. The Tuscan countryside is really rather lovely, you pass through a series of tunnels to get past the hills of Siena and then are passing through a wide valley with farms and hill towns on either side. The main crops seem to be grapes, olives and sunflowers, the last having now dried off but which would have been a lovely display a few weeks back. Approaching Florence it is back through a further long tunnel to pass the Florentine hills and into the city.
Arriving at Santa Maria Nouvella main station we quickly found the tourist office and received our map and helpful directions from the lovely lady. We headed off towards one of the town markets – this was a central food market stuffed with the most wonderful and tempting things (oh to be self catering….mmmmm) and surrounded by leather stalls as well as the usual tourist rubbish. We had a bit of a wander and splashed out on a few purchases.
The next stop was the large main square of Florence – this contains the main cathedral and bell tower and the baptisry – it also contained SOOOO many tourists and some intermittent rain! The Cathedral, Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore is the Roman Catholic mother church of the city. It was named for the lily (fiore), the city's symbol. The church was designed by Arnolfo di Cambio. Construction commenced in 1296 and finally completed in 1436 with the help of Filippo Brunelleschi's engineering of the huge dome which is a further symbol of the city. The original façade was destroyed in 1587 and only in 1864 did Emilio De Fabis create the Gothic Revival replacement. The building's exterior is covered with marble panels of various shapes and sizes in shades of green, white and pink and looks kind of like a deranged liquorice allsort. In contrast the interior seems somewhat sparse – it has the usual stained glass and the some paintings, statues etc but compared to some other churches we had seem it was relatively plain, although what did stand out was the massiveness of the structure towering ceilings, massive columns very widely spaced. From there we had a look at the outside Campinalle (bell tower), this was created by Giotto between 1334 and 1337 when he died and Andrea Pisano took over the task until 1348. Francesco Talenti completed the tower from 1350 to 1359. The exterior is covered in a geometrical pattern of Carrara green marble, white marble and red marble from Siena. It is 84.7 m high, however we declined to pay the 15Euro to join the very long line to climb the 414 steps to the top, despite the lure of the view. We also had a look at the outside of the Baptistry – famous for its beautiful doors - eastern door, the Gates of Paradise, is the best known of the Baptistery doors and has ten panels depicting scenes from the Bible. We took photo’s and moved on.
Heading towards the Uffizi Gallery we kind of hit the wall and needed a coffee (and the toilet) we clearly made a bad choice when we were slugged 10Euro for 2 coffees (We thus felt no compunctions as to utilising their tables to prepare and make our snack of liberated breakfast items and to make free and full use of their toilet facilities). Passing through a square filled with replica art (Including a fake David???) we arrived at the Uffizi only to be told we could wait in the line for about an hour and a half or pay the extra 4Euro to go “straight in”. This turned out to be a fib, we could stand in a line to discover that we could pay an extra 4euro to wait for an hour to get in….. I was REALLY over art and queues and crowds by this time so we gave up on that idea and walked to the Ponte di Vecchio.
Ponte Vecchio is one of the most striking and “iconic” (I think that is probably an overused word in Italy and tourism) of Florence's six bridges; it is thought to date back as far as the Romans however this structure collapsed from flood damage in 1117 and again in 1333, 12 years later it was rebuilt and then rebuilt again in 1565. The bridge also survived World War II when the German's destroyed all of the city's bridges except this one. The bridge has three graceful arches supporting the covered crossing which was topped with stores (selling overpriced, high-end jewellery to really silly tourists) and houses under the porticos. We strolled across and tool photo’s but didn’t bother with the shops.
We headed up the hill (it is very steep on the other side of the Arno) to visit the Boboli Gardens – this is a 45 hectare garden (10 Euro… ching ching!) winding up the hill opposite the city. The tourist blurb says: “the Boboli gardens are one of the greatest open-air museums in Florence that embraces another site of culture in Florence, the Pitti Palace. The park hosts centuries-old oak trees, sculptures, fountains and offers peaceful shelter from the warm Florentine sun in summer, the beautiful colours of the changing foliage in the fall and smells of blooming flowers in the spring. The Boboli gardens are a spectacular example of "green architecture" decorated with sculptures” . It was certainly lovely with lots of hedge bordered paths, views and best of all it was quiet and free from the tourist hoards.
Exiting the Gardens near the Forte Belvedere (a massive star shaped fort that is now the museum of contemporary art – more euros: no thanks, I was over handing out euros to look as stuff, over art and over churches! Do you get the feeling I was not having a great day!?). We then walked down a massive hill before climbing another on (including lots of steps) to Piazzale Michelangelo – this WAS worth it as the view an the lovely cool breeze was fantastic we paused a while to enjoy the vista of the Arno and of Florence AND another fake David statue - I think they infest the city.
Descending we walked through the city towards the station – pausing for Kirstin to buy some more leather, however as I was brewing a migraine and we were both over the crush and crowds of tourists we decided to take the earlier train option and headed back to Siena on the 5.10pm train. Arriving back at the hotel at about 7pm it was drinks in the bar then dinner (they offered me a lovely Salmon with salad – they ARE trying after all. After diner we were also able to sort out our issues (Thanks to the wonderful girl on reception – such a contrast to the grumpy buggers we had been dealing with) with booking a hydrofoil from Sorrento to Naples on the 16th (I couldn’t work out the Italian website – google translate seemed to be suggesting that I needed to book passage for either my armchar, my baby, my animal or my bicycle!Read more