Firenze and Pisa, Italy by Mel

Hello everyone from the city of the Medici!
For those who wonder where that is, it is Firenze (the Italian name) or Florence (the English name) in Italy. Firenze is located in the north of Italy (275km northwest of Roma), in the Tuscany region. It is considerate to be the birthplace of the Renaissance.
A quick history of the city is necessary as we visited a lot of historic places and it will help to explain what we saw (and let’s be honest, I love doing research about history!).
Firenze started in the first century BC as a roman colony for soldier. By 200CE, it was a well-developed trader city. It continued to develop until the 14th century where several bouts of plague, killed half of the population and slowed Firenze development. The arrival of the Medici family in the first part of the 15th century, started the exponential expansion of the city. The Medicis were a family of rich bankers, merchants and politicians. 2 popes and 2 queens of France came from the Medici family. Their influence reverberated through the Tuscany and well beyond. They were the influence behind the development of the arts and sciences. They sponsored artists like Leonardo DaVinci, Michaelangelo, Raphael, Donatello (yes the four Ninja Turtles!) and plenty more! The Medici family stayed in power until the beginning of the 18th century. By that time, Florence was part of the Tuscany which passed to the Austrian Hapsburgs. In 1860 Florence joined the newly formed kingdom of Italy.
Back to us! We arrived here on the 19th of July after a couple of trains from Genova. We settled in our new place and did a bit of shopping for the few days we will stay here. We are trying to cook more than eat out as it is getting pretty expensive. We spent the evening planning and the kids played. Then off to bed as the next day was going to be a big day.
Sunday the 20th, we visited the city.
We are staying in the city centre which is great as everything is walking distance. The streets are small and full of people (as it is the full tourist season at the moment), but I love the paved streets and small shops everywhere you look.
We started by visiting the Medici Chapels, which were built in the 16th and 17th century to celebrate the Medici family and the Grand Dukes of Tuscany. It was added to the already existing Basilica of San Lorenzo (which we could not visit as it was Sunday and churches are reserved for mass on Sunday in Italy). The entrance is made through the crypt where you can see several reliquaries with pieces of bones of plenty of important people. Then you can go to the Cappella dei Principi, the Princes chapel. This is a breathtaking chapel. It has a 59m high dome and every place you look, ceiling, walls, floor, is a piece of art. There are statues, monumental sarcophagi of the Grand Dukes, marble of different colours, paintings, inlay works… This is truly a masterpiece. The proportions and the quality of work make it a must visit in Firenze. There is another smaller chapel made by Michelangelo (his first attempt in architecture) where you can also find some of his sculptures. This is less show stopping, but the sculptures are exquisite.
We followed with a visit of the Medici Riccardi Palace. This palace was built between 1444 and 1484 for the Medici family. It is now the seat of the administration of Firenze and a museum, which we visited. In the museum, we saw more beautiful rooms with magnificent ceilings, beautiful carvings everywhere. We saw one room with an hourglass on the wall and all we could think off, was the Medici family having boardgame nights in this room and using the hourglass for that! Then Emma mentioned that it might has been to time someone who was asking something to the Medicis, which is probably closer to the reality! I can not find the proper explanation, so if anybody know, I’d love to know!
In this palace, there was also an exhibition about different version of the same project: for example, we could see draft drawing of a sculpture, then a drawing with more details, then the sculpture made in terracotta or other material, then the final version of the sculpture. It was interesting to see the process of it all.
We followed this visit with the outside tour of the Cathedrale of Santa Maria del Fiore. As it was Sunday, the cathedral was closed, but we got to see the outside (we will visit the inside another day). It was another breathtaking gigantic piece of art!!! The construction of it started in 1296 and finished in 1436. There are so many details on every part of it! It is made with white, pink and green marble. The cathedral complex located in Piazza del Duomo (the place of the cathedral), includes a Baptistery and Giotto's Campanile, a free standing 84.7m tall bell tower. These three buildings are part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site. The cathedral has an enormous dome, which they needed to invent tools first, in order to build it. It was a good lesson for the kids: it is not because you don’t have the tool to do something that you need to give up: just create the tools that you need! You could spend a full day just looking at all the details on the outside of the cathedral. This is one of the most visited site in Tuscany and there is a reason for that!
We continue our visit of Firenze, walking in the streets of the city. We saw a shop which sell all kind of different Rubber Ducks and the kids love it!
Another thing I love in Florence is that you hear bells a lot. So many different churches and they ring different religious things during the day (not the hours though!) I always loved the sound of bells!
We found a place full of statues. Masterpieces or copy of it? I’m not sure, as we saw several versions of the same sculpture through our different visit in Firenze. Always impressive though. We saw a bronze copy ofIl Porcellino, a roman statue of a boar. Andrew loving Asterix, always love looking at anything related to a boar! We saw the original in the Riccardi Palace in the morning. Funnily enough, when I did some research about it, it was mentioned that it appears in the Harry Potter movies, and that night we watch the last movie, and we saw the boar!!! It was a fun coincidence!
We walked on the Pento Vecchio, which is a bridge with houses on it. All the houses are jewellery shops nowadays. We found a Pandora shop just before the shop, so Emma got her Pandora charm for Italy: she picked one with a pizza on it!
We finished our visit with a walk in the Boboli garden, another place commissioned by the Medici family (like everything in Firenze it seems!). It is a big garden, the first Italian garden with fountains, statues and artificial caves. It was nice to finish the day walking in ‘nature’.
We came back home, and had a board games night, then bed.
On the 21st, we went on a day trip to Pisa. It is only an hour train drive from Florence. To be honest, I wasn’t going to put it on the list of our visits, but the kids asked to go, so we did! And… I’m glad we did. We took our train and the station in Pisa is around 15 minutes walking for the tour of Pisa and the complex around it.
The tower started being built in 1173 to complete the city cathedral’s complex. But after 3 of the 8-storey construction, the tower began to tilt due to the soft ground it was constructed on. War begun between the different Italian city states and the construction halt for almost a century, allowing the ground to settle and possibly avoid the early collapse of the tower. When the construction started again, they built the extra storeys with a longer side on the leaning side to try and compensate but the extra weight still proved problematic.
Over the next 4 centuries, bells were added with the heaviest one weighing 3600kg. By the late 20th century, the tower was still losing 1.2mm per year and they had to close it to try and stabilise it, which they did. The lean is now around 46cm but is not increasing for now. It is expected to last at least for 200 years. Unfortunately, the bells do not ring anymore as it does not help with the lean of the tower.
We arrived there and obviously the kids wanted to do the touristy pose of holding the tower. We had to fight to found a space to do it, as it was packed! We then went inside the tower (after queuing of course). It was very weird! Once inside you really feel the lean and for me, it made my stomach queasy. When walking up the tower (296 steps), it was funny to see the wear on the steps moving from one side of the tower to the other side depending on where was the lean. At the top, you get a good view of the cathedral and the surroundings. The bells are still at the top, but they are fixed and do not move anymore. I am not comfortable with heights and it was slightly unnerving for me, but well, what I wouldn’t do for my kids!
We then visited the cathedral. The inside is beautiful as usual. Similar to a lot of churches in Italy. Painting, amazing details everywhere you look.
We also went to the Baptistry, a round building with incredible acoustic. Every 30 minutes, someone come to sing a few notes and you can hear the echo. It is pretty impressive.
The museum was next, where there were maps, drawings that used to be on walls, then we saw where they used to burry some of the important church people and a lot of sarcophagus.
By then, we were a bit over visit, so we found something to eat (yummy pizza in Pisa!) and went back to the train station, got into the train and back to our place. We did a bit of blogging, dinner and bed. Our legs are starting to fill the hours of visit we are doing those last few days!
On the 22nd of July, we visited the inside of the Cathedrale of Santa Maria del Fiore. We wanted to get some ticket for the tower, but the timing didn’t work for that day, so we bought some for the next day.
We were surprised of the nakedness of the inside of the cathedral. The outside is so rich that I was expected something similar inside. But the walls are relatively naked. There are some paintings and a few sculptures but not as rich as the outside is. The inside of the dome is beautifully decorated though: it is a fresco of the last judgement, You crane your neck to try to see it all. I kinda wanted to lay down to take time to look at it, but unfortunately, you can’t! The sideway chapel are also beautifully decorated.
There is also a very interesting clock. It is unique in its style. It is a 24 hour clock with only one hand which goes anticlockwise (I think to copy the movement of the sun). The first hour starts at sunset, which means the clock needs to be re-adjust every week to be on time (still today). It is called Italian time and it was probably used to tell when it was time to start vespers, the sunset prayer service. It was also when people back then, needed to know when was the sun going down, which marked the end of the farming day. It is today the only left in the world in working condition.
After that, we made our way toward the Uffizi gallery, one of the most important museums particularly concerning the renaissance work. After the last Medici died, their massive collection of art was given to the city of Florence, under the condition that they would never be moved away from the city. Some masterpieces are in this museum. There is a lot of religious art, obviously being in Italy! We saw “Primavera” (Spring) by Botticelli: a painting representing love, harmony and peace. On this painting, there are 138 species of plant that were recognised, all painted with very precise details. This painting is very enchanting, I think. I like the three graces dancing together and the flow of the painting. The meaning of which is not completely known, but I like that too. Each can see what they want to see in it. I don’t pretend to know much about art, but I enjoyed walking around that beautiful work of art and taking it all in.
We saw also “the birth of Venus”, the most famous painting by Botticelli (I prefer Spring, but this is personal). We saw a lot of paintings and sculptures. The few ones I really enjoyed were: ”Portray of a young man” by Perugino. For some reason, the expression of the face really resonated with me. “Allegory of fecundity and abondance” by Signorelli: the monochrome got my attention and I liked the characters. “The Annunciation” by Leonardo Da Vinci: I always liked this one as it is different from the thousands of others Annunciation scene. Mary is represented in a comfortable situation, reading and meditation on a book. The scene’s background, mountains, shows what will become the mark of Leonardo’s paintings. I don’t know why, but I like it! There are a lot more, but it might make to reading a bit boring (sorry if you don’t like art!).
This was a massive museum, and I must take my hat off to the kids: they did awesome. It was a lot, but they looked at art, they did not complain, they read some explanations. They are wonderful travellers and I am so glad we are doing this together.
After the museum, we walked a little bit in the city and found a window in the wall thing: this is a little window in the wall and you can order your glass of wine through it… You obviously pay more for your wine that you would in a normal bar and it is a touristy thing. So I just took pictures and left! Back to our place for a dinner and a movie I think (not sure now!).
The next day (Wednesday 23rd of July), more museums (yes plurial!)!!! To the delight of Emma who started to be a bit over museum by then! But well, this is Florence, we ca not, not see some of the masterpieces there is here!
Early start (8.15am) to the Galleria dell Academia. Another very famous museum in Firenze, mostly due to the presence of the gigantic statue of David. I am glad we got ticket for the early session (you have to book tickets for a time slot to enter most of the museums around here!), as we got to see the statue with almost nobody around.
We arrived at the museum, queue up until the let us in, pass the metal detector and hoped to find the statue quickly. We entered one room then pass to the next one, and there it was.
In this massive room, there stand the statue of David. It looked tall already when you see it and the corridor is probably around 50 meters long (I couldn’t find the information anywhere). As I said, we were extremely lucky to be there so early. We could actually look at it without being pushed around by thousand of other tourists. We walked toward it and the more you advanced, the more impressive it gets. The statue of David is a sculpture in marble created from 1501 to 1504 by Michelangelo. Its height of 5.17 metres. In the biblical narrative, David is described as a young shepherd and harpist whose heart is devoted to Yahweh, the one true God. He gains fame and becomes a hero by killing Goliath. Michelangelo was only 26 years old when he started this monumental statue in one giant marble block.
It is truly remarkable: the details of the veins, muscles, expression all from an inanimate piece of rock (albeit a big one)… Talent and hard work makes wonder.
We walked around the statue and took a few pictures obviously, admiring the work. But there are plenty more art to see there. We got back to the first room where the statue “the rape of the Sabine women” from Giambologna is. We had to explain what rape was to the kids. I’m sad to have to do that but unfortunately, we are still in the word that they need to know what it is. Nevertheless the statue is beautiful to look at. More religious painting with bright colours all around the walls.
There was also a part about musical instruments from the Medici collection. Some instruments we never saw before. The creativity here again is amazing. I would have love to hear some of those instruments played! I asked Andrew and Emma to talk about one piece of art from the museum in their blog and I think they both choose one of the instruments we saw. I’ll have to see what they research about it!
There was also a couple of rooms with some modern paintings that were interesting to see. I have to admit that, again, my knowledge is pretty limited in that area, but I enjoyed some of them, without having a clue of what they meant (some of them didn’t even had a name to help you figure it out!) But it was a nice change from all the religious pieces!
We kept going in the museum to see more sculptures and painting. I have a lot of pictures in my head now! The museum was smaller than we thought, so we were done a lot earlier than planned. No worries, early lunch with yummy pizza and lasagna for the kids (they have been dreaming of Italian lasagna for a while!), then we came back to our place to rest and do a little bit of schoolwork, then back out for yet, another museum!! We got ticket for the bell tower and it includes the museum of the cathedral as well and a few other things, so we are back at it again.
First to the Duomo museum: more religious painting and sculptures. One of the most famous one is the Pieta of Michelangelo. When I saw it, I thought: ‘it is not the one I know?’! It turns out, Michelangelo made 3 Pieta, which is the scene when Mary takes the body of the Christ down from the cross. His most famous one is at the Vatican (the one I knew about), but he did 2 others and never finished those. The one we saw is Marie, helped with Marie Magdelene and Nicodemus (who was a secret disciple of Jesus) supporting Jesus body. Michleangelo gave his face to the face of Nicodemus. When he worked on this piece he got frustrated as he found imperfections in the marble and ended up chipping it and never finishing it. It was supposed to be part of his own burial site, but it was “finished” (not completely as you can still see where the marble is polished and were it is not) by one of his pupil, Tiberio Calcagni, then sold to the Bandini family and eventually bought by the Medici family. This is truly a beautiful sculpture.
We also saw a silver altar, with incredible details and stayed there looking at all the tiny details of it for a while.
We visited the Baptistery (not as beautiful as the one in Pisa) and what is left of the first church which was built prior to the massive on that is there now and went up the bell tower. There are 414 steps! It was hard, but we did it! You get a pretty good view of Firenze when you are at the top (despite being terrified of the height!)
After this full day, we got back, rest, ate and bedtime.
The following day was moving day again!!! On our way to Roma!
Exciting!!!
Mel
(By the way, it is soooo hard to pick only 20 pictures!!!)Read more