Day Two in Florence

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!

Fun in Florence

Gosh, where is the time going?! So much has been happening around here that I don’t seem to have had time to take a breath, let alone blog! I did manage the Christmas Club post on Sunday, but I arranged that to post whilst I was away!

Yes, Hugh and I had a wonderful trip to Florence last weekend. I booked up through Lastminute.com and we got a brilliant deal with flights from London City Airport and a hotel with bed and breakfast literally 30 seconds from the Ponte Vecchio.

WARNING!! PHOTO HEAVY POST!

We left Friday morning, getting the train from Wickford to London City – apart from there being no seats on the train (well it was rush hour!) the train journey was really easy. We checked in and then got ourselves a cup of tea/coffee and did a bit of reading whilst we waited to board our plane.

Hugh getting us a drink and a pastry!

The flight over was uneventful – just what you need really! I did have my phone with me for once – I nearly always leave some sort of camera in the overhead locker and so can’t get at it – and so I was able to take a couple of snaps as we were flying.

The Alps from the plane

Upon arrival in Florence we got the shuttle bus into the centre of the City and then our hotel was only a 10 minute walk. We dumped our cases in our room and headed off to explore.

The first thing we did was stop at a little cafe and have a slice of delicious pizza each and a drink. When we left I took Hugh’s photo out the front – not a very Italian named cafe!

 

The sun had set and all the lights were coming on – it was magical and so wonderful to see all the historic sites lit up. We strolled around for a couple of hours, soaking up the atmosphere and getting our bearings for the rest of the weekend.

We had our evening meal at the Hard Rock Cafe as I had never been to one before! I know it is not very Italian, but it was fun and we had amazing food.

We returned to our hotel at about 9.30pm – completely shattered! We both slept well that night!

Saturday dawned bright and sunny, a few clouds, but quite warm. After a lovely buffet breakfast we set off to ‘do’ the sites.

Our first stop was the Bargello Museum. Wow! The statues there were fantastic and we saw all the old masters – Michaelangelo, Donatello, etc.

 From there we went on a stroll towards the Duomo and stopped for a gelato.

  

Once we had finished our gelatos we went into the Duomo. It is such an impressive structure, but in fact I think more so from the outside than the inside! The museum is not open at the moment and so we didn't get a chance to go in there and the Baptistry, although open, was included in a group ticket including the museum and I was a little cross about that and so we decided not to go into the Baptistry! However, we did get to see the doors, which were impressive.

 We haggled with a street vendor and bought a selfie stick!

We then went for a mooch around Florence. We had time to kill as we had a guided tour booked at the Uffizi for 4.30pm. So we took in the sights in the daylight!

The Ponte Vecchio

Me outside the hotel

The foyer of the hotel (and Hugh in the mirror)

Sante Croce Church and the Christmas Market

We met the tour guide outside the Uffizi and after a 25 minute queue got into the museum! The tour guide was excellent and we spent a very pleasant 1 1/2 hours in the museum. My favourite piece was the Botticelli - Birth of Venus, but we also saw works by Caravaggio, Titian and Michelangelo to name but a few.

This is a view of the Palazzo Vecchio from the viewing terrace of the Uffizi

Having had a very enjoyable tour we then found a restaurant with a view of the Palazzo Vecchio and ate outside - there were patio heaters however!

On our return to the hotel, over the Ponte Vecchio we had a wonderful view of the Duomo all lit up.

We got back to the hotel and collapsed! 

I'll do another post for Sunday as I should think you are exhausted if you have managed to read this far! But as you can tell, we had a wonderful time and I am still excited about all the things we saw whilst we were there.