Fake Empire....
September is a great time to start to visit places like Florence. They get far, far too busy during the scorching summer months and you can't move for selfy-sticks fastened to idiots with paper maps.
Today, the weather is perfect so I'm off on the train to the big city!
Going from the little local station of Terontola it takes about an hour and a half until you get off at the end of the line at Santa Maria Novello(SMN),bang in the centre of Firenze.
I know that there are days and days worth of museums and art galleries but today is just a stroll around my new nearest city of culture, just to get my bearings and I can tell from the start that its going to be slightly better than the previous city of culture I visited......Hull!
Five minutes from SMN I head up through the busy Central Market, a foodies paradise and then passing through the Piazza Di San Lorenzo I suddenly turn a corner and look up. You can't help but be impressed as you take in the sight of the huge 'Cattedrale Di Santa Maria Del Fiore', an absolutely beautiful and impressive world famous building and the main landmark in the centre of Florence.
From here it's on into the main 'Piazza Della Signoria' containing the equally impressive 'Palazzo Vecchio' with its various pot sculptures, mainly of naked grown men clubbing animals to death with small penises,(that's the men...not the animals!) and of course 'Michelangelo's 'David' albeit a copy, and also sporting a tiny widger! From here a walk through the 'Uffizi' courtyard corridor with all the statues of every famous Italian from Botticelli at one end to Galileo at the other before coming out at the River Arno.
Tickets are available for all these places but the requirement to join long queues is too off-putting for me to consider today. Crossing the river Arno i head up the south side leaving the crowds behind.
I'm wanting a view from the Boboli gardens but come across the 'Forte Di Belvedere' first, an old 'Medici' residence. The 'House of Medici' , a family dynasty for about 800 years were wealthy bankers and powerful Tuscans that created an empire for themselves and had a lot of clout in Florence but now only the buildings live on. They all died and the legacy ended. The fort and grounds of this residence, with its worn stone steps showing years of shuffling about laden with coins was definitely worth a visit as you got a different perspective of Florence from here, not to mention some bizarre sculptures!
Palazzo Pitti, Napolean's old gaff was impressive to see and far too big to be comfortable and then from here into the quieter area of Piazza Santo Spirito for a cold beer 'Moretti' and a look at the church before heading back and missing out the historic but ridiculously busy 'Ponte Vecchio' to take the lesser known bridge' Ponte Santa Trinita', back over the Arno and return to the train station.
Florence can easily be navigated around in a day just to get a feel of the place but there are loads of sights to see that would take time if you wanted to go inside....the world famous museums with the world famous paintings and the world famous churches all take time so it's just going to have to be return visits in quieter times to take it all in.....
Fake Empire, another song by 'The National' and title track off the album 'Boxer'. I keep promoting this band as they are worth a listen.
Sent wi' th'ipad
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