Dia Dodici…Off to Florence

The David in Piazza della Signoria, Florence,
but not the "real" David.

Two alarms are set to make sure we get the train to Florence, but with the church bells and kids being dropped at the elementary school, neither is needed. We feel like pros on the boats now, knowing which stops and which routes to take. Venice has become “home” quickly.

We discover there is wifi on the train. It costs one cent to sign up for it, just so they know who is using it! However, with all the tunnels it keeps losing the signal and we abandon it. Lush countryside slides by at 120+ kilometers per hour and we are in Florence in two hours.

We check in easily to our apartment that is newly renovated and very contemporary. On the top floor, it has a lovely outside patio that spans the kitchen and bedroom, opening to both. Compared to Venice, Florence is hot, so it’s great to have air conditioning and, in the evening, access to the outside.

One thing that this apartment and the one in Venice share is both have huge and heavy metal doors with multiple deadbolts on both sides where the door meets the frame. Andrea tells us that it would be easier to go through the stone wall than through the door. We suspect that people must have been breaking in right through the doors, for this to be the solution.

This apartment at Via de’Barbadori 3 is just off the end of the Ponte Vecchio, so we walk across the old bridge built in 1345. This was the only bridge not bombed during the Second World War and is lined with shops selling jewellery as it has been for centuries.

The streets are clogged and busy and despite this area being for pedestrians only there are cars and motorcycles and bicycles to navigate. Italians seem to believe traffic laws are all for interpretation. Truly. That was one of the things I loved about Venice – no cars.

We find ourselves in the Piazza della Signoria outside the Uffizi staring at the copy of Michelangelo’s statue of David. It is huge and set on one side of the entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio. On the other side is Hercules and Cacus by Bandinelli, and just to the right of this is a Loggia containing a wealth of famous sculpture, to name only two, The Rape of the Sabine Women, Perseus holding Medusa’s head. Behind us on the piazza is Neptune’s fountain and the Statue of Grand Duke Cosimo I on horseback – one of the early Medici’s. This family ruled all of Tuscany for over 300 years and is celebrated as the source of the Renaissance.

Just a few blocks later we find ourselves at the back of the Duomo staring up at Brunelleschi’s. This wonder of architecture was built without using scaffolding by setting the bricks in a self-supporting herringbone pattern. It is a marvel that we will need to climb. Just in front of the massive church is the Baptistry; I can remember studying about the doors to this building when I was just in grade nine. We had an art teacher who, looking back, really stretched our minds. The 10 panels on this door were carved over a 28-year period by Lorenzo Ghiberti and are so beautiful that Michelangelo dubbed them “The Gates of Paradise”. They are in deep relief, probably four inches, and this let him achieve stunning perspectives uncommon at the time, and are sometimes referenced as the beginning of the Renaissance. I know that I am looking at copies, because the originals were removed and repaired after the floods in 1966, but they are so exact, it doesn’t seem to matter.

We wander farther and have pasta at a little restaurant where you choose your dishes from a buffet. After stopping for supplies, tired and full, we retire to our little patio and watch the stars come out over Florence while sipping excellent wine. Italy, you are so full of seductive charms!