19 February 2024 – Florence Part 2

Miles driven today = 0

Total Miles to date = 1,359

I mentioned yesterday how it’s a bit of a palaver buying bus tickets round here.  By all accounts it is possible to buy them from the driver but they can be a bit surly about it and refuse to sell you one.  So you risk either having to walk or incurring a lumpy fine.  There is an app available for you to buy tickets online but you appear to need an Italian phone number for that to work.  So the only option is to buy them in advance from designated outlets (often tobacconists) around the city.  Luckily one of these is just around the corner from where we are staying so we queued up with the locals buying their fags and lottery tickets and successfully acquired 4 x single tickets.

Then it was simply a case of jumping on the Number 11, where we had to validate our tickets and get them time stamped in a machine before we could take our seats for the 10 minute ride into the City.

Our first stop was of course Florence’s most famous building, the Duomo, together with its attendant structures.

Construction of this enormous edifice started in the late 13^th Century and took more than a 100 years to complete.

The main frontage is in fact a nineteenth century imitation of a gothic front created from red white and green marble.

These are the ornate main front doors.  The interior of the Church is free to enter but there was an enormous queue so we decided to try again later.

The Cathedral’s crowning glory is its dome, construction of which started in 1418, once they had worked out the logistics of building the 45 metre diameter structure from a base 54 metres above the nave.  When this was finished in 1436 the Duomo was finally complete and ready for Papal consecration.

You can buy tickets to climb to the top of both the Dome and the adjacent “Campanile”.  We were well aware that in order to do this you would have to book well in advance and besides I’m not sure my knees would thank me for clambering up and down the bell tower’s 414 steps.

The building in the foreground of this picture is the Baptistry.  It’s the oldest building in Florence dating back to the 6^th or 7^th Century, although there was a time when it was believed to have been Roman in origin.

The North doors of the Baptistry are known as the “Gates of Paradise”.  They were designed by a chap called Lorenzo Ghiberti who won a competition for the honour in 1401.  Ghiberti immortalised himself by including a self portrait.  He’s the guy one up on the left who looks a bit like Chairman Mao.

The Palazzo del Bargello was built in 1255 as home base for Florence’s Chief Magistrate.  Nowadays it’s one of Florences many museums.  We knew that, what with today being a Monday, a lot of the museums and galleries like the Uffizi and the Bargello would be closed but in all honesty we overloaded somewhat on paintings and sculptures yesterday.  So we were happy to vaguely follow a downloaded walking tour, going off-piste from time to time when we saw something which took our fancy.

In the Piazza Della Signora this fountain is currently undergoing a spot of maintenance judging by the way the lady on the right is receiving attention from a gentleman who appears to be shaving her arm pit.

The fortress-like Palazzo Vecchio is in fact Florence’s Town Hall.

The main entrance is guarded by these prime examples of masculine musculature.

We did manage a sneaky look inside around the ground floor but they were selling tickets to see whatever is kept upstairs and we really weren’t that fussed to investigate further.

Across the way was another selection of statues including this depiction of Perseus with the Head of Medusa.

We headed down towards the banks of the River Arno.  Above the arches to the left is the Corridoio Vasariano.  This 1km corridor was built in 16^th Century to allow Cosimo I, the then ruler of Tuscany, to walk from his home at the Palazzo Pitti to his office in the Uffizi on the other side of the river without having to rub shoulders with the Florentine Hoi Polloi.

The famous Ponte Vecchio is where the corridor crosses the river.

Most of the buildings on the bridge are nowadays given over to glitzy jewellers.

Looking downstream towards Pisa under the watchful gaze of Benvenuto Cellini, a 16^th Century goldsmith and sculptor.

The deconsecrated Church of Santa Maria is now a library.

So many Palaces!  I can’t even remember what this one was called but I believe it was another (closed) museum.

We walked back up to the Duomo to see if the queues to get in were any shorter.  They weren’t.  We moved on again.

The Palazzo Medici-Riccardi was the principle seat of power of the Medicis for more than a century and was the prototype for the Palazzo Pitti and other buildings in the City.  It’s another Art Gallery / Museum now but today there was some sort of protest going on outside judging by the number of banners and police presence.

The Basilica of San Lorenzo is in the centre of the Medici quarter and was actually owned by the rich banking family for a while.

As we wandered by the bells struck noon.

Via Dell Ariento appears to be Florence’s equivalent of Petticoat Lane with lots of Asian gentlemen selling predominantly leather goods.

I’ve said many times before how much I love a good old fashioned market and the indoor Central Market certainly didn’t disappoint with an abundance of sights and smells to enjoy.  Naturally Lisa was drawn to the dried mushroom stall.

Anyone for a muffin?

This shop looked the perfect place to pick up some out of season festival attire.

Santa Maria Nouvella was on the wrong side of the tram tracks so we didn’t get any closer.

Santa Maria del Carmine as seen from the North bank of the Arno.

So, time for a spot of lunch.  We looked at some of the eateries down by the river but they were all South facing and daft as this may seem in mid-February, we were worried it might be a bit hot!  So we found this little place, whose name I completely forgot to make a note of.  We were a bit early but it did fill up after a while.

I went for fresh tagliatelle with wild boar and Tuscan Sauce Lisa had a Chicken Cutlet.  Very nice!

So one more walk up to the Duomo but the queues still hadn’t subsided to any great degree so we left it.

But at least the Sun had now come round so that it was shining fully on the front of the Cathedral so I took a few more snaps and we called it a day.

This looked like a good way to get back to the van but I don’t think they were heading our way.  So we jumped back on the bus which took a lot longer than expected due to an ambulance blocking our path on a narrow one way street.  The natives were getting very restless by the time we got under way again.  I’m certainly ready to leave the hussle and bustle of city life behind again for little while.

20 February 2024 - San Gimignano