Absorbing art and culture in Florence

Another nice train journey after an early start and we were in the heart of Florence.

The beautiful view of Florence and the ponte vecchio

From the second we stepped out of the station we could see some of the famous sights peeking over tall buildings, beckoning us in.
A short bus away and we were at our accommodation - a lovely little B&B where the host Leo gave us a lovely introduction as well as some great maps and advice about the city. As per the normal drill, after dumping our stuff in the room we were soon straight out the door to explore the city.

I've always known of Florence as a beautiful place to visit that's a haven for art historians due to it being the epicentre of the renaissance, but other than reading about it in the latest Dan Brown novel "inferno" I still didn't know much about it. I knew of the Duomo, the Ponte vecchio and the vasari corridor, but not much else.

On the first afternoon we visited all the major locations we knew of (not the vasari corridor of course as that's not open to the public) and were surprised that we could visit them all so easily in one day - we're clearly to uses to Rome and having too much to see!

During our 4 days here we went to most places at least twice and enjoyed the atmosphere at each of them.

The famous duomo

The Duomo is the stand out attraction of the city, standing tall above it and seeing glimpses of it's wonderfully decorated exterior draws you in for a closer look each time you see it. The Duomo - being a large church - is decorated as you would expect; beautiful stain glass windows, paintings on the walls etc. But the dome itself is covered inside with (insert name) depiction of heaven and hell and its a great sight - even if you do have to severely crick your neck to fully view it! You can pay to climb to the top of the Duomo, but for 8 euros we didn't feel it would be worthwhile.

The ponte vecchio bridge

Head down the road from the Duomo and you'll soon hit the banks of the Arno river, where you'll find the famous Ponte Vecchio bridge, which is full of high price jewellery shops. The bridge and the views of the river are just as I'd imagined - beautiful.

Over the bridge and up a hill is piazza Michaelangelo; a large square that overlooks the whole city and offers the most incredible panoramic views of not just the city, but the surrounding hills and countryside as well. We stood here admiring the view for quite some time - especially as there's an absence of hawkers up there to hassle you so you can relax that little bit more.

As I mentioned, this place is for art buffs - of which I'm firmly NOT a part of - but regardless of this fact to come here and not visit Michaelangelo's David would be seen as almost criminal. He is at the gallery accademia and it's closed on Mondays so we decided eventually to visit on Sunday and buy a ticket that allowed us to return at a set time to enter via the advance ticket line - rather than queue down the street for what must be well over an hour. For 4 extra euros I think that's worth it!

Claire's sneaky photo of David - stupid you can't take photos freely!

The statue itself is very impressive, the level of detail on him is incredible - even if we did both think his hands and feet were disproportionately large! We both couldn't help feel that this particular sight was a bit lost on us though as we don't fully appreciate it, especially as neither of us had known its history or bothered to research it, but we did try to appreciate it while we were there.

What was annoying was that you couldn't take any photos - even without flash - which once we saw the price of the souvenirs in the shop, we realised that it was surely to make more money, needless to say I wasn't impressed given the price we had paid to get in to see one statue!

One day we headed to a nearby park for a run in the sun - which was great as it was also a big family festival in amongst it and as I ran through I could see so much going on from food markets, to jousting, to boxing rings! It felt good to at least burn off some of the carbs we've been gorging on since being here.

In amongst our days wondering around piazzas, enjoying litre portions of wine and beer and yet more amazing gelato, we discovered a little Mexican place called Ebys that became a firm favourite with 4 euro burritos that were huge and delicious - so much so that we returned on our last day.

We left having really enjoyed our time in this pretty city. Whilst it wasn't the best Italy has shown me, it certainly had a lot of charm that wasn't lost on us.

Next up - the home of bolognese sauce in Bologna!