I had high expectations for Florence, since Brittany had
talked so highly of it from her trip the previous year. Immediately upon entering Florence, the most
charismatic nicest older woman helped us find our way to the hostel. She collaborated with some others at the bus
stop and they helped to make sure we were going in the right direction. After being in countries where we knew a
little bit of the native languages, it was a relief to have some help, given our
complete lack of Italian. Things will never go exactly as
planned and unfortunately, one of the top rated hostels in Europe we had booked
was unable to accommodate us due to technical problems. Even in that bad situation, they lived up to
their good reputation and found us a new, hard to find hostel amidst the
biggest fashion week in Europe, invited us to a free dinner, and paid for a cab
to get to our new hostel. We pull up to
this gorgeous buildings situated right on the canal, and pulled open these
enormous doors. The elevator to the
third floor was a rickety old thing but gave the place character. So far, we have stayed in such a variety of
places, and this bed and breakfast was also different than anywhere else we
have stayed. We got our own very large private room, larger than my own at home.
Benedetta, our host, was so chill and sweet, immediately welcoming us
into her home and trusting us like we were old friends. She brought us some tea and biscuits and we
were able to relax a little. Not up for
anything too adventurous the first day, we went to Dante’s and had some
wonderful bruschetta, pizza, and wine.
That was enough for one day so we took that night to recuperate.
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| Large doors to our hostel |
That was quite a hot time for Florence, so Benedetta
suggested we go someplace fresh in the afternoon then explore the city later in
the day. Interestingly, the word for cool
(temperature) is fresco in Italian, so often, it is translated as fresh. Anyway, that turned out to be a fabulous idea
so we spent the day in Boboli Gardens, keeping to the shade as much as
possible. It was a relief to visit the
costume gallery in the gardens because 1. It was free with the purchase of
entry to the gardens and 2. More importantly, they had air conditioning. We left the gardens ready to face the
heat because we were tourists with a list of things to do. While putting a lock on the bridge is usually
reserved for newly engaged lovers, Brittany and I validated our friendship with
our simple gold lock. Following the
tradition, we threw our key in the river and took many a’ photo. We got some slow cooked typical Italian pasta
then chilled at a bar until we realized that water and sleep were more
important than enjoying the night life.
So overcome with dehydration from the day, we trudged back, chugged
water, and slept.
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| Boboli Gardens |
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| Large ancient Roman tub |
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| Duomo in the background |
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| Boboli Gardens |
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| Boboli Gardens |
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| Our lock on Ponte Vecchio |
We had a successful bike tour in Barcelona so we tried our
luck with one in Florence as well.
Details about our bike tour will come later. That night, we had a 4 course (free) dinner
starting with cheese and honey, then pasta, then tuna paste on veal, finishing
with a tiramisu. That night we sat on
the Duomo steps, people watching then made our way to Flo, a local night club
at the top of Piazzo Michaelango, giving its guests a full view of Florence.
We had almost seen it all after our bike tour: Old Bridge
(Ponte Vecchio), Piazza Michealangelo, Plazza de Signoria, and the Republic
Building. The only thing left on our list to see was the inside of the Duomo. Impressive yet
I still enjoy the outside better. On the
far wall, you’ll find a 24-hour clock that starts at the bottom, runs
counterclockwise, and is based on the sun schedule.
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| Old clock |
Bike Tour Deets
Piazza della Repubblica: They made Florence the capital
of Italy for a little bit so they decided to give it a little renaissance facelift.
To give the illusion that the building was taller than it actually was, the
architects made the stones at the base larger than those at the top. This palace is the oldest in the city circa
1100. The woman inhabitants had a little
trouble leaving the building since their dresses were so large. Because of this difficulty, women were only
allowed to leave on Sundays to pray.
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| Piazza della Repubblica |
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| Stones larger at the bottom than the top |
Back in the day without sun-in and hair coloring, women
would stay in the sun for hours attempting to get the ever so popular blonde
color. White skin was also a sign of
beauty too however, so they would wear these big hats with holes in the top. They pulled their hair through the holes and
the large brim covered their pasty white skin.
Women also wanted to be perceived as intelligent but instead of doing so
through quoting books or what have you, they shaved the top of their head to
create a larger forehead. Let’s imagine
these ladies for a minute. White skin, large foreheads on a partly shaved head,
with sort of blonde sun-damaged hair.
There are 8 sides to the Duomo, representing an important
number in Christianity. It is associated with rebirth and resurrection. Color
on the sides: Red, White, Green, representing Faith, Hope, and Charity. The green was for the hills, white for the
snow on top of the mountains, and red for the blood of those who fought for
Italy. The infamous Italian flag was
created afterwards, taking the same colors.
The façade you see here today was actually redone when Florence was
deemed the new capital. Not a huge loss
since the previous façade was only halfway completed anyways. For years, no architect could figure out how
to build a dome large enough to cover the hole in the top of the building. Finally, Bottticellli got the job done. There are two shells making up the dome, the
smaller inner one giving more stability to the structure, allowing the outside
dome to be much larger. He built all of
this without scaffolding and this feat continues to stump architects
today. Michealangelo wasn’t the nicest
of dudes and spoke his mind. As he was
walking past he noticed the small arches at the base of the dome and thought
they looked a little dumb. His opinion
was highly respected so Botticelli scraped the arches for the other sides.
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| Duomo |
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| Arches on one side but not the others |
Johanes Oricellar.
Important figure in history? No, not really. Rich? Yes.
With his money he funded a palace and had his name etched on the
side. This was not his original name
however. One day as he was taking a
stroll through the woods and needed to pee, so he did his business on a
particular plant. He noticed the plant
turned purple and as purple was a hard to find color of the time, thought he
could somehow turn a profit. Well, he
was right. Not wanting to be forgotten
for his feats, he changed his last name to Oricellar, sparking resemblance to
the Italian word for urinate, orinare.
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| Johanes Oricellar's Palace |
Piazza della Signora houses quite a few statues. Not many 17 year olds are ambitious enough to
run their own country and the republic at the time assumed that as well. They intended to use Cosimo I de' Medici as a figure from
which to rule behind. He was not too
keen on this idea and instead took over at his ripe age, got rid of the
republic, and commissioned many of the statues seen in the plaza today. One of Brittany’s and now one of my favorite
statues in the area was Perseus with the Head of Medusa. He is seen holding the head of the
decapitated Medusa. This image represented Cosimo as the messenger showing what
would happen to the Republic (Medusa) if they ever tried to take power
again, so the story goes. The sculptor depicted his wife’s
face as Medusa’s and put his own face on the back of the helmet of the
messenger.
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| Cosimo |
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| Messenger holding the decapitated head of Medusa |
There are plenty of David’s around, one being in Piazza della Signora. While the real one used to sit in that square, it was moved to the
Academia to keep it better preserved.
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| David |
So many beautiful views of Tuscany. Of the bridges seen in this photo, only the
one in the foreground, Ponte Vecchio, is from before WWII. Hitler destroyed all of the other bridges in
an attempt to cut off supplies but for one reason or another, did not destroy
this last one.
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| Ponte Vecchio in the foreground |
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| Florence at sunset |
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| In front of the Duomo |
All around Europe there are street signs with interesting
stickers on them. Some are small enough
that you may not notice them if you’re not looking for them and they are clever
and not offensive. We stumbled across a
workshop that made some of these stickers and was intrigued since we had seen
them in many other cities. We didn’t get
much information about it, but were able to see the variety of designs they
had.
Next stop, Rome!
