Another early but not a early early start. Our bus took us to Prato about a 15 minute train ride from old town of Florence. We were warned to be careful at the train station and everywhere during the day as this place is said to be even worse with pick pockets than Rome and it is filled with tourists. I think tourism may be Italy's #1 industry!! There are so many people visiting here. We started out at the Duomo (Cathedral) and Giotti's Bell Tower which is impressive. The church here is the fourth largest church in the world and took 160 years to build, starting in the late 12th century. It is pretty amazing. We had Alesandra who gave us a very informative talk about the buildings and how the dome of the church was engineered way back as this final part, the dome remained unfunished until the mid 14th century.
We also visited the outside fake David in the Piazza Publica and later we saw a flag dance in front of people dressed as nobility with lots of drumming. From there we were led to the Ponte Vechio, the only preserved old bridge in Florence from old times. Hitler visited Florence six years before WW2 and viewed this bridge and toured it. When the war came, his orders were to destroy all the bridges except this one to stop the Allied Forces from liberating Italy. It is a medieval bridge. From here we could see a water polo game on kayak's going on. We had only time for a take away lunch outside in time for our 2:30 pm ticket time to get into the museum. Again, hoards of people around. We did not have time to visit the Academia Museum which was built to house the David. We saw people getting married at the churches in all this chaos also. One good thing, there are not a lot of cars around. You can't drive a car into the centre of Florence, unless you are doing a delivery or live in the old section, but there is enough traffic and scooter traffic.
We bought our tickets for the Uffuzi Museum with its Old Masters of Leonardo Da Vinci, Carravagio, etc. Theere are two huge floors in the Museum and as usual we needed to be revived after the visit with Crema Gelato as we have had this every day. There are so many Gelato places here, one around most corners and they make their own gelato. The day was very hot, like everyday since we arrived. We walked through the Saturday market with all of its leather goods and stuff. Some of the girls bought stuff, Debbie bought things but I did not.
We all met up at the train station for the return journey by train then bus back to Viareggio, where a
We did not feel like a big supper after last night's very late four course big supper, so with snacks all day, hot lemon water with a granola bar was just fine.
On the way home, in the bus, it was joke ride (last night it was singing night) and there were some really funny jokes told at the back of the bus.
Florence is a spectacular city and ideally two days is a minimum here, just to see the main attractions, but additional time was not programmed here, too bad. There many things that were not seen by us.
Barb & Debbie
PS - note that these photos are all Debbie's this evening. Some of the earlier photos were Debbie's also.
The photo here is Debbie, Barb, Djchorna and Selena at the fountain in Piazza Publica in Florence today. This is right in front of a Medici Palace and on the other side is the outside David (a copy).
Tomorrow is Cinque Terra and the Tower of Pisa.
That is why my sister in law and her husband wear Crocs..they are often in Cleto and it is built on a hill so crocs is best for all that walking..
ReplyDeleteenjoying your blog a great deal.