Three Days in Florence

One of the many wonderful things about living in Italy is how easy and affordable it is to travel to so many other amazing places.  Of course, with Tom's dissertation work, he doesn't have a whole lot of free time, but whenever he can spare a couple of days off, we always feel torn between spending more time exploring in Rome, visiting other spots in Italy, and traveling to other cities in Europe.

The Duomo (as seen above from the Campanile)

However, a visit to Florence was on both of our must-do lists, since we've heard so many wonderful things about the city and neither of us had ever been.  So, when we found really great deals on train tickets and a hotel, it was a no-brainer to take a quick trip before the Christmas holiday.  Now that we're back, I'm happy to report that Florence ("Firenze" in Italian) definitely lived up to our high expectations.  In fact, I'm tempted to say that I now have a new favorite European city!

Florence sits about 175 miles north of Rome in the Tuscany region of Italy, and is only about an hour and a half from Rome by high speed train.  Florence is considered by many to be the birthplace of the Renaissance, and so the city receives a lot of tourists anxious to learn more about its history, art, culture, and architecture.  For me, though, one of the best things about Florence is just the strikingly beautiful landscape.  The city is on a river, surrounded by hills, and almost all of the buildings have matching reddish-orange colored rooftops. The look is so stunning and distinctive that, once you've seen it, it would be truly impossible to mistake Florence for any other city.

The Campanile

However, the architecture is also quite impressive, and the Duomo (formally the Basilica of Saint Mary of the Flower), is definitely the city's the most recognizable building.  In addition to the Basilica, which was built roughly between the late 1200s and the mid-1400s (although the facade is 19th century), the cathedral complex also includes a baptistery and a campanile.

In pictures, the Duomo definitely looks big, but visiting it in person is a whole other experience.  When we first saw it, rounding a corner on our way to our hotel from the train station, we were completely overwhelmed by its size and grandeur.  It takes several minutes to walk around the entirety of the complex, and each side of the building is so beautiful that it doesn't seem like there is a "front" and a "back."  For a small fee, you can climb the 414 steps to the top of the Campanile, where you'll be rewarded with breathtaking views of the entire city.  If given the chance, I could have happily spent hours up there just taking in the views, and so this experience was definitely the highlight of the trip for me.

Ponte Vecchio

In addition to the Duomo, other popular spots around Florence are Santa Croce (another gorgeous church), the Palazzo Vecchio (which has a copy of the David as well as other statues out front), and the Ponte Vecchio (meaning "old bridge").  The Ponte Vecchio is unique because, in addition to allowing pedestrians and cars to cross the river, it is lined with all kinds of little shops and boutiques, selling everything from jewelry to leather boots and purses, to pizza (although I don't particularly recommend pizza in Florence).  With so much to see, we had a great time just walking around the city, taking in all of the sights, and doing some window shopping along the way.

Duomo and Christmas Tree

Beautiful Painting inside the Dome

Red Roofs (from inside the Campanile)

Santa Croce (from the top of the Campanile)

Palazzo Vecchio (with a copy of the David statue on the left)

Ornaments and Pottery at the Christmas Market

As an added bonus, we also happened to stumble upon an amazing Christmas market near Santa Croce (on its last open day of the season)!  Unlike our bad Christmas Market experience in Rome, this market had everything I had dreamed of, including dozens of stands (under red and white awnings) selling holiday-themed items such as ornaments, candles, and hats and mittens.  They also had some delicious German foods including the bratwurst (which Tom had-he was especially excited to have ketchup and mustard for the first time since we've moved abroad), and insanely delicious apple strudel (which Tom and I split later as as a pre-dinner dessert (for those of you who are curious, the strudel was very similar to pie, except that it perfected the crust to apple ratio by tripling the apples and halving the amount of crust!)).  In general, though Florence seemed to be more in the holiday spirit than in Rome is, and we really enjoyed hearing the Christmas music and seeing lights and decorations everywhere we went.

Christmas Market

Strudel! (with Market in Background)

View of the Ponte Vecchio from Piazzale Michelangelo

In other ways, too, Florence had a very different look and feel to it than Rome does.  It was smaller (and thus perhaps seemed a bit more touristy), but it also seemed to be a bit cleaner (not that Rome is horribly dirty), and more efficiently run. In general, though, there is a gradual change in look and culture as you move from the south of the country to the north. This statement is a broad over-generalization, but the south of Italy (Naples and south) feels a bit like Greece to me, while the north seems a bit more like France or Germany (although to be fair, I've never actually been to Germany). Perhaps my favorite cultural difference, though, is related to the language.  The Florentine dialect of Italian is considered the "standard Italian" (which you'll what learn in an Italian class), so it was much easier to understand people in Florence than it was in Naples, or even in Rome.

Arno River

Florence From Across the River

Synagogue (with a non-red roof!)

Looking out from Piazzale Michelangelo 

Uffizi (picture is from the internet since no photography is allowed inside)

Of course, while we were in Florence, we also visited a couple of art museums. This may be an unpopular statement, but I have to admit at the start that I'm much of a Renaissance art connoisseur. Frankly, I enjoy art depicting landscapes much more than art depicting people, and once I've admired about five paintings of Madonna holding an infant Jesus, I don't particularly see a need look at a hundred more.  Perhaps if I knew more about the lives of the artists and/or the social and political history of the period, I'd find it a bit more interesting, but on just a basic level I don't enjoy looking at the work of Renaissance artists the same way I enjoy looking at  impressionist or post-impressionist paintings.  I guess it's just not my thing...

Giotto Madonna and Child (stock photo)

However (as Tom convinced me), you can't go all the way to Florence and not see some of the most famous art of all time, so we visited both the Accademia Gallery and the Uffzi.  Normally, you need to reserve tickets in advance to visit these art museums, but since it was off-season, we were lucky enough to purchase tickets right on the spot (and at $6.50 Euros each, they really are quite reasonable).

Although the Uffizi is a much bigger and grander building (you could literally get lost in there), each of these museums houses both sculptures and paintings, including many gold-ground paintings (a particular style of artwork where artists applied gold leaf to wooden panels).  As was was popular during the Renaissance, many of the works are religious-themed (many of the paintings were commissioned as altar-pieces) or involve subjects from the classical period.  The Academia Gallery is most famous for being the home of Michelangelo's David (although there are also a couple of copies of the work around town), but also has a few unfinished Michelangelo sculptures (which are actually really neat to see, since you get a sense of how the figure emerges from the marble).

So, even though the museums weren't my favorite part of the trip, it was a very interesting experience to see so much important and influential art in person (and, if you feel at all like I do about Renaissance art, rest assured that you really can spend as much or little time in these places as you like).

Copy of David (in front of Palazzo Vecchio)

Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" (stock photo)

Piazzale Michelangelo

All in all, Tom and I had a fantastic trip.  We saw some amazing sights, ate some delicious food, and really enjoyed seeing another part of this very diverse country. Someday, I'd love to spend some time in the Tuscany country-side as well, but, at this point, I'm not convinced that any other part of Tuscany will quite live up to Florence.  As Tom said on the  last day of our trip (while overlooking the city form Piazzale Michelangelo), being in Florence is like "living in a fairy tale," and I couldn't agree more.

Alla Prossima,
Erin

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Wed. Dec. 19:  It's standard Italian winter weather.  Highs in the upper 50s and lows in the 30s.  I really can't complain, although I am looking forward to getting to a point where the sun doesn't set at 4:30 anymore!