I've been sitting on this post for over a week trying to work out where I went in Florence. Considering that I spent 3 days here, albeit it was 10 years ago, you'd think I'd remember something about this trip. In the end, I gave up trying to google the places, so I'm just going to ramble on about what I remember.
I arrived in Florence quite late in the day from UK. After dumping my bags at my accommodation (I have absolutely no recollection of where I stayed) I wandered into town. Going by my photo time stamps it was around 6pm. Those were the days when I still liked to do a spot of retail therapy every now and then. Italy is the perfect place for that, no wonder I ended up in this part of the city as soon as I arrived!
This market, I remember coming, as I was quite surprised it was still open so late in the day. I can't remember what it's called though. The other reason I remembered it so well was because I bought a few bottles of olive oil here, they're a lot cheaper than in UK. The stall had tasting samples, and I remember scoofing my self with the delicious bread, dunking them in the different types of olive oil, including black truffle ones which are quite expensive. I mean, you can hardly blame me, I'd flew over on a budget airline and hadn't eaten since lunch time!
You can't miss Florence Cathedral when you're in town. When this gothic style cathedral was completed in the 15th century, it was the largest cathedral in Europe. Today, it is the sixth largest in the world (source).
The other fascinating about the Cathedral, is it's dome. Of course, I didn't appreciate it at the time, other than thinking how grand it is. I didn't even take a proper photo of the entire dome, all my photos have cropped the top off! Anyway, the dome is fascinating in two ways. First because of its octagonal shape, instead of a normal round one. The technique and skills to build an octagonal dome of this scale and height weren't available a few hundred years. It's a feat that they managed in the end, and the dome is still standing after all these years.
Secondly, the dome is built out of 4 million pieces of bricks and is the world's largest brick dome ever built! How's that for a bit of travel trivia 😊
The next day, we went back to the Cathedral, and climbed up the dome. I remember this quite clearly, as half way up we could walk around the dome and I started to get jelly legs. The walkway was just wide enough for one person to walk pass and you can get a great birds eye view of the interior. The smudges you see in the image below are from the shield, to stop people from falling over, or to prevent damage to the fresco, depending on how you look at it.
It was a steep climb up the dome, 436 steps I'm told, not that I was counting.
And once I got to the top and outside, the climb was so worth while. Just look at the view of Florence city.
This stunning tower is Giotto's Campanile and is part of the Florence Cathedral complex. It's nearly 85 meters tall and the exterior is decorated with different colour marbles from around Italy. It is also possile to climb up Giotto's Campanile, and if you do, you'll get a great view of the Cathedral dome. So I guess it depends on whether you want to see the tower or the dome, or perhaps both. That's a lot of climbing, 400+ steps for each!!!!
During my few days in these remarkable city famed for its renaissance art and culture, I managed to visit most of the popular landmarks as a first timer would.
Santa Croce dates back to 1212, and is the final resting place of for many great Italians, such as Michelangelo and Galileo Galilei the philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician. I snapped a rather blurry photo of Galilei's tomb.
Uffizi is one of, if not Florence's most visited tourist location. Friends told me if I could get tickets I should definitely go. The tickets were sold out on my only day in town and I was due to go out of town to somewhere (I couldn't remember where) on the other days, so I wasn't too bothered if I couldn't make it. I wouldn't be able to appreciate the masterpieces inside anyway.
On one of the dayouts, we came back quite early from our day trip out of town. It was raining, and after walking around Ponte Vecchio (the Old Bridge across the Arno) for a while, I decided to try my luck to see if we could get in Uffizi as there was still an hour before it was due to close. There was hardly anyone there on a late Sunday afternoon and we got straight in. Perhaps I was destined to go after all. Sadly, I don't remember much of it...
And that's all I remember from my three days in Florence. I think I saw quite a lot, but I just can't remember much of it. That's why I'm so eager to journal my travels before I grow old and go to la la land.
