Roseyland

Click here to read all of my Italy trip posts in proper order.

Today is a big day, we are going to Florence. I’ve wanted to go to Florence since I took art history in college. I looked back over my college papers, and it turns out I even wrote a paper on the subject of David from Donatello to Bernini. I totally don’t remember writing this paper, but you can read it here. If by chance you are a college student, I have some free advice for you. You probably have to take some type of upper level elective outside of your major. Take art history. I know what you are thinking, history is boring and I’m not into art. Wrong. Art history is like history with pictures, which is way better than regular history. Anyways, we spent a lot of time talking about Florence in my art history class, and I’ve wanted to see it ever since, and now I have.

Okay, so this is day 3 in Italy. We got up, took the metro to the train station, and took the train to Florence. The train was very nice. If you are traveling between major cities in Europe, you often have two choices. You can take a direct train between the two cities or a regional train that makes a few stops between the cities. The direct train is more expensive, but it’s a faster and nicer train. I’d go with the direct route if I were you. I’d also splurge on first class, because it isn’t that much more money, and it’s less crowded. The train got us to Florence in about one and a half hours, and we headed straight to the Galleria Accademia. If you are going to Florence, especially in the summer, you will want to make reservations to see the Galleria Accademia and the Uffizi Gallery. If you don’t, you will either not see them, or spend all day waiting in line. I used this website to make reservations, but I’ve heard that hotels can make them for you too.

The Galleria Accademia is where you can see Michelangelo’s David. You are not supposed to take pictures inside this museum. I did not know this, so I took out my camera, and took a picture of David. Then I realized that nobody else was taking pictures, which seemed odd, and then I saw the “pictures are strictly forbidden” sign. Unlike the Sistine Chapel, people seemed to be obeying the rules here, so I did too. From that point on at least.

After seeing Michelangelo’s David, the plan was to check out the Duomo, which is the big cathedral right in the middle of Florence. The line was super long though, so we skipped ahead to lunch. This was the only time I think we made a bad dinning choice. It was really hot, so we kind of just picked the first place we saw, and the food wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good, and it ended up being one of our most expensive meals for so-so food. We should have realized this, because the place had tourist trap written all over it, but unfortunately the heat had impaired our judgement. The picture below is of the Duomo, we’ll go inside later.

After lunch, I climbed to the top of Giotto’s bell tower, which is the bell tower right next to the Duomo. I love climbing to the top of domes and bell towers in places like Florence. It’s fun, because you have this mini shared experience with a bunch of other tourist from all over the world. I like trying to guess where the other people are from, and then sometimes you’ll say something in english as you are passing somebody, and if they speak english, there is this moment where you realize each other speaks english, and yeah, I’m a dork. It’s also a lot of work climbing these towers, so you get a nice sense of accomplishment and some great views. Here is a picture of the steps in Giotto’s bell tower.

Here is a platform partway up the bell tower. It was nice that the bell tower had these, because it gave you a place to rest. Most of the domes don’t have a lot of places to rest on your way up.

Here is a grate where you can look all the way down the center of the bell tower. Nice shoes.

Here is a view of the Duomo’s dome from the top of Giotto’s bell tower with florence in the background.

This is the platform on top of the bell tower. I kind of felt like a gerbil being inside the little tunnel cage.

After I climbed down from the bell tower, we went to the Uffizi gallery where we had reservations, which like I said earlier, you need. The Uffizi gallery is a world famous art gallery, and it was pretty cool, but you can’t take pictures inside. I did take this picture of the Ponte Vecchio from the Uffizi gallery though. The Ponte Vecchio is a bridge over the Arno river in Florence. The bridge contains a number of gold shops, we’ll go there a little later.

After the Uffizi gallery, we headed back to the Duomo to see the inside. The line was shorter this time, and it actually rained a little. It felt good though, considering how hot it was. See that building with the gold doors? That is the Baptistery, which is basically a mini church in front of the Duomo where they used to baptize people, and maybe they still do, I don’t know. The gold doors are the Gates of Paradise by Ghilberti. The doors on the baptistery now are just a replica of the original doors, which are now in a museum. These doors are one of the things from my college art history class that I really wanted to see.

This picture is a little out of order. First we went into the main level of the Duomo. It was very pretty, but dark, and my pictures didn’t come out all that great. Also, being that this is a church, they want you to be quite, and every few minutes, this creepy deep recorded voice says “Silenzio” followed by “Silence”. It was scary. After we saw the main level, I went to climb the dome, because as we discussed, I like climbing stuff. I took the picture below of the inside of the Duomo on my way up the dome. Look at the people below, they are so tiny, somebody should feed them more.

Here are some of the steps on the way up the dome. See, how cool is that, just think how old these steps are and how many people have climbed them. Are there any domes I can climb in St. Louis? I miss it.

Here is a view from the top of the Dome. Notice the hills in the background. They are covered with houses. I would like one.

This is the platform on the top of the Dome. I took some time to sit up here, relax for a bit, and send some SMS messages, which cost 50 cents a piece from Italy by the way.

After the climbing down from the Dome, we headed to the the Ponte Vecchio. Hey look, it’s a picture of me on the Ponte Vecchio. People are always like, why don’t you ever take any pictures of yourself, and I still don’t really understand why I would want to, but here I am, standing on a bridge, in Italy. Like I said earlier, the Ponte Vecchio is filled with gold shops. If you aren’t interested in gold, like me, the bridge also has nice views over the river Arno.

After the Ponte Vecchio we had dinner in Piazza Vecchio and then headed to the train station to catch our train back to Rome. Here is a picture of the tracks in the Florence train station. Cool picture huh?

The train ride back to Rome was nice. We sat next to an american couple who had been in Italy for 10 days. It was interesting to hear their stories. Also, on the train we were given olive flavored crackers. I thought they were okay. A few people have asked me whether I liked Rome or Florence better, and of course this isn’t really an answerable question. Rome has so much to see and do, but it’s also a big big city with a definite rat race feel to it. Florence on the other hand is smaller, and is more laid back and relaxing. Florence was also nicer and cleaner. I would much rather live in Florence and I do wish I had a few more days to just hang out there. Tomorrow we visit the Galleria Borghese and take a tour of the ancient roman ruins. You can see more pictures from my trip here and a few videos here.