Florence - Capital of the Renaissance

Wow is all we can say. What a town. It has quite a preserved Renaissance flavor, with small winding streets and centuries old buildings to each side. There are dozens of art galleries, and wonderful museums and palaces, not to mention churches on every corner, ruins of an old town wall, and magnificent views of the Arno river from the many bridges. There was so much to see here, and we had a very full two days. This is going to be a long posting, so hang in there!
We arrived in Florence on the night of May 14th, at about 9:30. We couldn’t seem to find the stop for the bus to take to our lodgings for the night. After the bus rolled by, we chased after it, backpacks and all, only to realize once we reached it that the driver was taking a break. 20 minutes later, we were off and on our way to Campaggino Michelangelo, our lodging for our time in Florenzia, which happened to be a way cool campground. The place was located near Piazza Michelangelo, up on a hill and across the Arno river from much of Florence. It was very nice, with permanent style tents in an olive grove. This was a great improvement on the “American” style camping we were expecting. Instead, we had beds, blankets and pillows, a wood floor, flush toilets, warm shows, electric lighting, a market and restaurant/bar…however, no internet, ha. Still the place was wonderful, with excellent views of Florence from the patio areas.

Laura in our tent, in our campsite, next to Piazza Michaelangelo

Views from the campsite.

San Croche Church, as seen from Piazzo Michaelangelo.


The Duomo, from Piazza Michelangelo



Eric in front of a David copy, at Piazzo Michaelangelo.

Our first day in Florence, we decided to head up through town to the Duomo. The bus system took a bit to figure out, so we ended up walking for most of the day, which is cool because it’s a very good way to get a feel for a city and check out local haunts. We also stopped by a few outdoor markets loaded with Italian leather and counterfeit purses to shop for souvenirs. While perusing the market stalls, we came across the famous “Boar” fountain and in keeping with local tradition, rubbed its mouth for good luck.

Eric and Laura rubbing the Boar's mounth.

Laura getting her shopping "fix"

When we reached the Duomo, or the central town cathedral, we took some snapshots of the outside. Like Milan, it is entirely covered in Marble. But the Florenese used three different colors (white, green, and pink), rather than just white. We checked out the accompanying baptistery as well, and got in line to go inside the church. The inside was beautiful as well. Finished in 1436, it is the fourth largest church in the world, and quite massive. The inside is also opulently decorated, with some artwork by Donatello and Ghiberti. When we got back outside, we climbed up Giotto’s tower, which stands next to the church. Four hundred and fourteen steps later, at the top, we found beautiful views of the wonderfully preserved cityscape, and rediscovered Laura’s fear of heights.

Laura in front of the Duomo.

Eric and the Dome of the Duomo.

Laura and the astrological clock. Notice it has a 24 hour face, not 12. It also rotates counterclockwise...

Laura ready to surrmount Giotto's tower.

Eric pretending to be the hunchback of Giotto's tower

View of the Duomo from the top of Giotto's tower

Laura on a staircase, decending inside the tower.

Back on the ground, we grabbed some pizza for lunch and an overpriced coke. We needed to use the “lou” as well, and our dining establishment conveniently had one, albeit on the third floor. So we climbed some more stairs and that was fun. As a side note, we’ve noticed that as we travel further east, and summer approaches, the days are starting to get hotter, and the streets and museums are filled with more tourists.
Our next stop of the day was the personal church of the Medici family, Basillica di San Lorenzo. The Medici family was a very important and powerful banking family of Florence during the Renaissance, and kings in all but name. A lot of the inside decorations were designed, sculpted, and/or painted by Donatello and Michelangelo. Donatello was in fact buried in the church, as well as the patriarch of the Medici family, Cosmo de Medici. In fact, when we were visiting Donatello’s tomb, some other tourists knocked over the flowers, causing a big commotion with the church people. Whoops!!! One more thing about the church…the front of the church is unfinished brick. Apparently, the façade was designed by Michelangelo, but there was a disagreement over whether to buy the low quality, but local marble, or high quality foreign marble. Eventually everyone died and it was never completed.

Laura in front of the Basillica di San Lorenzo (on the side that was unfinished)

Our last stop was the Academy Gallery, where Michelangelo’s “David” sculpture is kept. WOW! Were we impressed. We’ve seen quite a few marble and other sculptures in our days, but we could see that this was in fact, perfection. After looking around the rest of the gallery, we then strolled through some markets, and picked up a gellato before we made our way back to camp. For dinner we stopped at the local grocery store, to pick up a meal of prepared pasta and cheese, yummy!

Eric and a "fake" David, standing in the spot where the statue stood until the 1800's


The next day, we went to the Uffuzi gallery, which apparently, is THE gallery in Florence for Renaissance art, although there are quite a few others of interest as well. The Uffuzi, located in the former Medici family offices, housed hundreds of roman and greek sculptures, and countless renaissance masterpieces paintings. It was quite impressive, although smaller than expected.

Eric at the Uffuzi in front of some Rembrants

Laura with some cantelope gellato outside the Uffuzi Gallery which contained a plethera of works by Di Vinci, Michealangelo, Bottichelli and Titian (to name a few!)

On our way to the Ponte Vecchio, or “old bridge,” we saw a stream of classic European cars make their way down the Arno river bank, which was quite interesting. It seemed they were doing some sort of 1000 mile drive across Eurpoe and some streets were roped off to accommodate the caravan of antique motorcars. After making our way through the auto parade, we cam upon the bridge, which is covered with three stories of jewelry shops and goldsmiths. It was saved by the Nazi’s during WWII because of its age (built in the 1300‘s) and was quite an interesting sight. View of the Ponte Vecchio (old bridge) from Piazzo Michaelangelo

You might be thinking at this point, wow, Eric and Laura are some awesome sight seeing Americanos, and they must have headed home at this point, right? NO! We then made our way over to San Croce church, where Galileo and Michelangelo are buried, however could not gain entrance. Apparently, there was a concert staged on the steps of the church that afternoon and they closed early. So we gathered a few bottles of wine and some grocery store dinner and spent the night on the patio of the campsite, with a couple from New Zealand and a couple from the Netherlands. The next day, we slept in and did laundry, heading to Rome that afternoon.

Eric on the way home.

Well, as amazing as our time in the land of all things Italian Renaissance was, we are very excited about heading to ROMA, to see the roman ruins and Vatican there, not to mention everything else. Until next time, Caio and enjoy the pictures!!!