Firenze

On June 6th, we got up early, checked out of our hotel, jumped on a train, and were in another Italian city by 10 am. Amazing really. It is also nice when you get off a train and are greeted by a nice little Italian Church right outside station.

But that little church had nothing on Il Duomo di Santa Maria del Fiore. It was amazing to stand next to this cathedral. Again, no words to describe the feeling properly





It was like being in a Tuscan fairy tale. Sunday though, closed for mass. It didn't matter that much though, I was in Florence!! The city of the Renaissance and the Medici dynasty!! Here is Cosimo I, not the founder of the dynasty also named Cosimo, but the first official Grand Duke of Florence and then Tuscancy c. 1537. His great-great grandfather, Cosimo de Medici (Cosimo the Elder) is considered the founder of the Medici dynasty. The Medici family, ruthless and powerful rulers that they were, are nevertheless protected many artists, writers, and inventors. Their patronage made Florence the de facto capital of the Renaissance. Which of course, made the city incredibly beautiful to walk through.

Take this piazza for example. Here is the fountain of Neptune in Florence...

Not far away are a number of statues including this reproduction of David, (the original was housed in a museum about a mile away and we wouldn't have been able to take pictures of it anyways).

Here is Perseus slaying Medusa...

I mentioned that Florence was the home of the Renaissance. Well, here are a few of the most famous members of that movement, all of whom were from Florence or the surrounding Tuscan countryside...




This little bridge, the Ponte Vecchio, was our next stop and it was pretty cool. You can see it is covered in shops.

Here is what it looks like from the end...

Apparently they moved all of the butchers in the town to this little bridge. Unfortunately, all the blood, bones, and other unwanted pieces ended up in the Arno River; not pleasant. So, they moved the butchers out and replaced them with the gold and silver smiths. To this day, this little bridge is where the jewelry shops are at. Who knows how many millions of euros worth of jewelry is sitting on that bridge.

The next bridge down has its own little story. The Ponte Santa Trinita (Holy Trinity), was destroyed by the Nazis in WWII, but the original stones, including that statue of the four seasons at each corner, and were used to reconstruct the bridge as close to its original form as possible.


My traveling companions and I walked back to Il Duomo, where we met up with some other students from Arcachon who were on their own separate adventure. The eleven of us stopped at a restaurant for lunch and then broke divided up to do our own thing. Brian and I went with the others to an art museum. It was filled with famous works of art including The Birth of Venus, The Adoration of the Magi and several paintings by Caravaggio including Medusa. No pictures of course, but after that we walked across the river and up a very steep hill. This view-and the climb to get to it-literally and figuratively took your breath away.



Another copy of David is at the top of the hill gazing out at the beautiful city. He's everywhere in Florence, so you better be comfortable with Renaissance nudes if you are going to this city.

After the climb we went to Vivoli Gelati, the best gelato in Florence; actually it was the best I have ever had anywhere. We then sat and had dinner and some beers at a cafe on the Piazza Vecchio. That is where my pictures of Cosimo I and the marble copy of the David were taken. It is also the square in front of the palace that the Medici ruled the city from. When that was done my original Roman group made our way back to the train station. Here was a picture of my last peaceful moment of the evening.

It was my last peaceful moment because we all didn't arrive back at the station at the same time. That was our first bit of stress, but when Amy wasn't able to get reservation because they closed the window at 9:00 pm, that really got us worried. She was only four people from the window and they slammed it shut!! Not good. So we waited for the others to show up and then tried to figure out what the hell we were going to do. We made a mad dash for the first train but it was pulling away already, so we missed that one. We were looking at all the trains that would still pass through Bologna an Italian man looked at the same train we had just missed and swore under his breath. I stopped him from running off and pointed out the other trains. I am really glad that I did, because just when we were having another moment of indecision about whether to risk jumping on a train without a ticket, he runs over to us and says to follow him. What the hell, we thought. We hitched our fortunes to his move and stood on an overnight train for about an hour before getting to Bologna. After a brief walk to the hotel, we crashed.