Florence

Florence was really impressive! We only had a day and a half day in Florence and needed about two weeks to see everything.

Just like the rest of our trip in Italy, our focus was on the food. :) The hotel recommended a restaurant for us and we ended up going there both evenings because it was so good. The front of the restaurant was like a small, old shop/grocery store and it opened up to a very large area in the back. It is amazing how many people they can pack into these restaurants in Italy. Once again, we covered our little table with plenty of plates heaping full of delicious pasta. Our favorite was rigatoni with lots of cheese and a red sauce. It seemed so simple, but was sooo delicious. I think all of the Italian food was getting the best of me though because I wasn't feeling well by the end of the trip and Michael ended up finishing most of the food.

We walked along the river after dinner on our first night in Florence. This bridge has apartments and jewelry shops built on both sides of its street. It used to be all butcher shops and produce until the King demanded that they be removed. He had to cross the bridge to get home every day so he wanted to see "pretty things" not dead animals hanging from the shops.

Since there was so much to see and we had such limited time, we decided to take a tour of the city so we at least made sure we caught a glimpse of all of the must-see things. One advantage to traveling during the off season, private tours!

One of our first stops on the tour was here to rub the nose for good luck. Munich has lions' noses to rub for good luck, I guess Florence should have good-luck-noses too.

After passing through numerous areas of the city with statues everywhere, our tour led us to the Duomo of Florence which was beyond impressive.

This postcard gives you an idea of how big the Duomo is compared to the rest of the city around. The first stone of the Duomo was laid in 1296 and was not completed until 1436. It was the 3rd cathedral built in Florence and was supposed to be the largest cathedral in the world until the plans were modified to make it smaller.

It was the first 'octagonal' dome in history to be built without a wooden supporting frame. To complete the dome the architect developed a revolutionary technique, he used interlocking bricks that supported themselves as the dome was being built. No matter where I stood, I could not get the entire cathedral in one picture!

The cathedral's facade was demolished in 1587-1588 and was bare until the 19th century. In 1864 a competition was held to design a new facade and was won by Emilio De Fabris. Work was begun in 1876 and completed in 1887. The huge bronze doors date from 1899 to 1903.

The red, white, and green marble was really beautiful.

The Dome's paintings form the widest, cyclical mural painting with sacred subjects, that is known. A surface of 4.305,56 square yards of paintings executed up to a height of 90 meters.

The mural was really beautiful and had so much detail through out.


A 24 hour clock in the Duomo

Piazza della Signoria was one of may impressive Piazzas in Florence. It really is an amazing sight to see so many statues all in one place.

More statues at Piazza della Signoria

The Rape of the Sabine statue was really cool. Rape refers to kidnapping and the statue is about the Romans stealing the women from neighboring Sabine to be their wives.

Our final stop of the tour was to see David and the rest of the Gallery of the Accademia. Before seeing David, we saw some of Michelangelo's other works. Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to build his papal tomb. Included in the monument plans were 40 marble statues. Part of the exhibit leading to David includes the four unfinished slaves meant for this papal tomb. The unfinished statues reveal eloquently Michelangelo's sculptural process: the figure would be outlined on the front of the marble block and then Michelangelo would work steadily inwards from this one side, in his own words 'liberating the figure imprisoned in the marble'. Our tour guide told us that some people believe he meant to leave them unfinished because it showed them struggling to escape.

I thought David was going to be just another thing that I would be disappointed in, but happy to say I had seen it. I was wrong. David is really impressive. Pictures do not show how big he really is. The hands and feet really had a lot of details in them. We were definitely not supposed to be taking pictures, but after seeing it and being so impressed how could you not?!? They had people standing everywhere looking out for people with cameras so I blocked their view as Michael tried to take a picture with the camera still half in his pocket.

Finally a great shot!

After that much sightseeing, it was time to fill our stomachs again! We wound our way through tiny side streets to find this gem. As you can see, they serve meat here! There were no menus. A guy that appeared to be the owner or at least the manager came up to our table and just started rattling off a bunch of food and we said, "Yes, please!". More and more plates of meat and an assortment of strange things just kept coming. They slices most of the meat on this table that was right across from us. The meat hanging from the ceiling was everywhere in the restaurant. Decorating your restaurant with your food is one interesting approach to interior design. We left the restaurant being more than full.

We headed over to the river to walk off our feast of a lunch.

The bridges and buildings formed cool reflections along the river.

Before dinner we took one last stroll through the city in the rain.

Carousel at Piazza della Repubblica

We had a great time in Florence and I would definitely be up for going back.