Cenacolo di Sant'Apollonia

We hit the autostrade and headed south. Today we are going to Pisa and then to Florence. We were up pretty early so the traffic from La Spezia to Pisa was pretty good.

On arriving in Pisa we have to park the bus a couple of kms away from the cathedral and catch a small tourist train to ferry us in to the key sights.

There are a few buildings that make up the main sights of Pisa: the cathedral, the bapitistery, bell tower, and the composanto (cemetery). Of course this is one of the most popular tourist attractions so the place was packed. One of the funniest things was watching people trying to take photos with them holding the tower in some way.

Unfortunately the baptistery was closed for renovation so we couldn’t visit that but everything else was open. The cathedral was very impressive as was the composanto. We wandered around and then went to a cafe close by with some great views of the various buildings.

After Pisa we continued on to Florence where we are spending the next few days. Our hotel is close to the centre of town and is a bit noisy. We had a walking tour booked and our guide took us around the main sights.

Florence cathedral is magnificent. It also has a separate baptistery and the reason for this that the patron saint for this area is John the Baptist. This is one of the largest cathedrals in the world and the dome is massive. We didn’t go inside as it was getting late and we still had a bit to see.

We headed down to the palace and this is where the statue of David used to stand. There are a few statues in this area but David is considered a masterpiece so in the 1800s it was moved inside a specially built museum to protect it.

We then went over to the river Arno to view the famous Ponte Vecchio bridge. In the 13th and 14th centuries Florence became very rich and the key family was the Medici family. They lived in the palace but had a villa on the other side of the river so this bridge was built with a secure walkway above it so they could walk from the palace to their villa. The bridge used to be where all the butchers were located but the smell was so bad they moved them out and put jewellers in there instead.

After the bridge we went to the Arts Museum. The Medici family had a lot of power and developed much of the cultural side of society including music. The museum contained some early pianos and a Stradivarius violin, considered almost priceless given its history.

The biggest attraction in the museum is of course David. At 4.5m tall it is impressive. Of course Michaelangelo could paint but he preferred sculpture and always worked in private, this is because we think he was left handed which was frowned upon at that time. He lived to the age of 89 and given the average life expectancy back then was in the 50s he was very old for that time. This also explains why there are so many of his works around. He did the statue of David when he was 26.

He had an unusual approach in that most sculptors of that time worked from various sides of the stone block at once, Michaelangelo worked from the front of the block to the back. This is called a bathtub model as the image emerges like water flowing out of a tub.

After viewing the statue and a few of the other paintings in the gallery our tour ended and we had to find somewhere for dinner. Our guide had pointed out the old markets as a place where you could buy a range of food types at reasonable prices so that’s where a group of us headed. It was really good. There was a couple of musicians playing and singing and there were heaps of different food options. The big difference with an Australian food court would be the ability to get alcohol.

Tomorrow we go to Siena.Read more