Hello again! Hope you are all having a good weekend.

Today I would like to take you to a beautiful city in Italy, called Florence (Firenze). Florence is the capital of the Tuscany region in Italy and is considered the birthplace of the Renaissance.

Santa Maria Novella

Ponte alla Carraia

I visited this city with my girlfriend a few summers back. We were driving and camping throughout Tuscany that summer with our car and tent. Although the days were quite hot, we visited some beautiful cities during that trip. I really wanted to visit Florence one day because It is such an interesting city. Mainly because of its history. Although I never visited the city before I knew so much about it. When I was young I visited it so many times in Assassins Creed. I read the work of Dante (Alighieri) and saw a lot of the city in season 2 of Hannibal. The city has so many interesting things to offer: famous artist, the Medici, beautiful architecture. Topics I always enjoy getting to know more about.

We actually used the train to visit Florence. Mostly because parking in the major cities is always a pain in the ass and sometimes pretty expensive. When we arrived at the train station we walked towards the historical centre of the town. I remember walking around the corner after passing through a shopping street and I saw the Ponte Vecchio. I can imagine everyone knows how it looks. A stone bridge with three arches. On the bridge there are many shops (lot of jewelers) and on top of the shops there is a corridor (Corridoio Vasariano) built by Giorgio Vasari in 1565 in order of Cosimo I de' Medici. The main reason was so that members of the Medici family could walk between the Palazzo Vecchio and Palazzo Pitti without the need to be amongst citizens. Before the jewelers and art shops that you will find on the bridge these days, butchers occupied the shops. You can imagine how that must have smelled, so after the corridor was constructed, the meat market was removed to avoid smelling it in the corridor and to boost the status of the bridge. Although it is probably not one of the prettiest bridges you will find, I do think it’s pretty unique.

We also visited the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore (commonly known as Duomo), although not inside. The queue was so long it almost rounded the entire Duomo... This massive church in Gothic style was built in a period of 140 year, starting in the year 1296. It really is a beautiful piece of work with a lot of marble and a dome spanning 44 meters. You should definitely check it out if you’re in Florence one day.

In the southern hills of the Arno River you will find the Forte di Belvedere. A fortress built between 1590 and 1595, by order of Grand Duke Ferdinando I de' Medici. It’s a steep walk up the hill with many corners where you will hear yourself thinking a couple of times, this has to be the last corner. At least that is how we experienced it with the heat ;D I’m not sure if there is an entrance fee, I somehow expected it to be, but entrance was free (that day). We walked around a bit and really enjoyed the view. Because it’s a military structure, it’s built on a strategic point which results in a great view of the city and its surroundings. I shot some pictures and we enjoyed the view for some time. After a while we were getting roasted by the sun, since there is hardly any shadow to be found around the fortress. We walked downhill again but this time inside the fortifications. It’s a nice walk through narrow streets.

View of the city and its surroundings

We walked around the city some more. Drinking some coffee, visiting the Palazzo Vecchio with the Piazza della Signoria in front of it and the Uffizi Gallery. Sadly, because it was the holiday season, it was almost impossible to enter the gallery. First you had to queue to buy a ticket and if you obtained one you could join another queue for entering the gallery. Queue times where over 2 hours long...

Although I’m not particularly a fan of visiting museums or (art) gallery’s, I do believe one should visit the Uffizi Gallery. There is so much high quality work in there with so much history to be told.
I’m curious if anyone else visited the Uffizi? Did you enjoy it? I’d love to hear it. I will certainly go back to Florence (outside the holiday season) to visit the Uffizi and go inside the Duomo.

Hope you enjoyed this little blog about my trip to this city. Feel free to upvote my work and to place a comment. I love to hear how others experienced this city.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

If you are interested in reading any of my previous post:

• Diving in Lake Atitlan Guatemala
• Snowboarding in the Alpes (GoPro footage!)
• The underwater world of Caye Caulker Belize (Gopro movies)

!steemitworldmap 43.782435 lat 11.255186 long Florence d3scr