Sunday morning dawned overcast and slightly chilly, but with
no rain – as an English person that is what we always hope for most!
Breakfast in the hotel today was BUSY! There seemed to have
been an influx of Italian tourists, here for the Bank Holiday weekend, and they
all just stood around chatting! When it is a help yourself buffet in a very
small room this does not make it easy! However, we were in a relaxed holiday
mood, so just went with the flow!
Having had our breakfast we went back to our room, packed,
checked out and left our cases with reception.
Our plan for today was to visit the Palazzo Vecchio – I was
really interested to go here after reading Dan Brown’s Inferno. Leaving the
hotel at 9.45am the streets were already teeming with people and we had to
queue for about 15 minutes to get tickets to get into the museum. However, once
inside, as long as you didn’t get trapped by the groups of tourist on guided
tours, it was relatively easy to move around inside.
The Hall of
the Five Hundred (Salone dei Cinquecento) was as impressive as I had hoped it
would be. We just stood there in awe!
Not only were the paintings on the walls immense, the ceiling had been painted too and there were some incredible statues placed around the edges of the room.
We explored
all round the museum, seeing some fantastic paintings and were also very
impressed by the map room.
Having
spent a wonderful couple of hours here, we collected our backpack from the
cloakroom, used the facilities and then made a move to our next destination.
This wasn’t
very far, as it was just outside in the Piazza della Signoria – the Loggia dei
Lanzi. Here there are some marvelous statues and we took our time enjoying
looking at them all .. and of course taking some photos!
We had
decided that we would spend the afternoon exploring the Basilica de Santa Croce
and so made our way towards it, looking for somewhere to have lunch on the way.
The Church didn’t open until 2pm as there were services there in the morning.
We investigated several restaurants, but ended up in one overlooking Santa
Croce. As the restaurant had outside heaters we sat outside, to soak up the
atmosphere! There was a Christmas market in the square in front of the church,
so it was very busy and we did lots of people watching.
Lunch was a
fantastic pizza each
and then it was time to get into another queue! This moved
relatively quickly once the ticket office opened.
The Basilica is the largest Franciscan church in the world.
Its most notable features are its sixteen chapels, many of them decorated with frescoes
by Giotto and his pupils, and its tombs and cenotaphs (Wikipedia).
We spent ages here. It was spectacular and also quite
humbling to see the tombs of so many great people in one place.
We arrived in the last small chapel and sat on the seats
there for a while to think over what a wonderful weekend we had experienced and
to take in the painting before us – the Last Supper by Taddeo Gaddi and above
that the Tree of Life.
We then reluctantly made our way back to the hotel to
collect our cases. After a drink and resting our weary feet, we made our way
back to the station to catch the bus back to the airport.
If you have never been to Florence I can HIGHLY recommend
it. We had the most fantastic time there. It is small enough that walking
around it is easy (although crowded) and everything is very close together. Two
days wasn’t enough time to see everything, but long enough to get a taste of it
and want to go back! Perhaps next time in the spring and to also go out into
the countryside a bit!
8 comments:
Florence is definitely one of the cities that is high on my list of must visits!
Rinda
You've got some great photos to remember it by. We spent one day there, from a cruise ship, but I'd love to go back and see more. We didn't even scratch the surface
This looks fantastic. Must put it on our must-see list.
That tree of life is just wonderful. I have long wanted to go, but your lovely photos and descriptions are fuelling that desire even more. And what a lot you fitted in!
ItS definitely on my list of places to see, and you've got some great photos ... It really looks amazing x
Your photos definitely make me want to take a trip there!
It looks like you had a really fabulous time there x
I'd love to go back there and you've given me 2 more things to add to my must see list One day on a cruise ship excursion was definitely not enough for us. Wonderful pictures Becky.
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