Wednesday 8 August 2007

Waking at about 9am I once again went for breakfast in the restaurant, although at a more leisurely pace than the previous day. Once finished I went back to my room to pack and discovered that I had lost my camera. Being small I had tucked it into my handbag and having checked with the hotel that they didn’t have it, I realized that it had obviously fallen out in the taxi when I got my purse out to pay (I know I had it when I got in the taxi as I had just taken pictures of the statues on the bridge). I did ask the hotel if they could contact the taxi companies for me to see if they could track it down, but they said it was too difficult. Apparently every taxi in Florence is white and unless I could tell them the company and the number of the cab they couldn’t help. Bitterly disappointed, I returned to my room to finish packing. I was disappointed to lose the hundreds of photos I’d taken of Pisa, San Gimignano, Siena, the wedding and Florence. I toyed vaguely with the idea of dragging my larger camera out of the case and rushing back into town to try and take some pictures, but of course I knew that I would never manage to capture all the ones I’d previously taken in the short time available and with the heat I couldn’t really face spending almost 2 hours walking into and out of town. I decided that it gave me a good excuse to visit Florence and all the other places I’d so enjoyed on the holiday again and I knew that I would be able to get wedding photos from others. Instead I decided to go for a long swim in the hotel pool.

With only a couple of hours left before I had to leave for the airport I decided to have lunch in the hotel. I had just chosen a chicken salad when the storm started. What started as a little downpour with a bit of thunder and lightning soon turned into a monsoon that seemed as if it would never stop. Lucky I hadn't chosen to go into town otherwise i would have been caught in it. Twenty minutes later and the old part of the hotel was flooding. The concierge suggested that I leave for the airport early as the weather had got so bad he was worried that I might not be able to get there. By the time the taxi arrived about 20 minutes later the flooding had reached the step of the hotel and I had to wade through an ankle deep lake to reach it. The journey took ages as we had to make many diversions, several of the roads were closed, trees having come down across them, also because of flooding and in places those large rubbish bins had been blown into the road blocking them. Finally we reached the airport, but by the time I got inside I was soaked. I spent the next couple of hours waiting for check in to open (thank god I had my I-Pod with me) and when it finally did I was glad to get down to the departure lounge. Firenze airport is not large and the duty free was closed, but there was a shop selling Italian produce and I bought a couple of bottles of Vernaccia di San Gimignano, a couple of bars of chilli and absinthe chocolate and some biscuits for work before settling down to wait for the plane.

Obviously the bad weather had delayed all the planes and we were held up for an hour or so, but the rain finally stopped and everything started to get back on track. Of course the rain started again just before it was time for me to get on the plane and we got soaked running for the bus, then having to sit around (with the doors open in the freezing cold, the temperature having dropped about 20 degrees) for about 15 minutes before we finally got taken to the plane. Fortunately, the rain stopped just before we took off so we had a smooth flight home, finally arriving back about 9pm.

I had a wonderful time in Italy and loved every place I visited, especially Florence, which has now become my second home after New Orleans. I can’t wait to go back again, and I look forward to visiting other parts of the country in the future too.

Tuesday 7 August 2007

I woke bright and early the following morning and after a quick breakfast in the hotel restaurant headed out to walk into town again as I had 3 more tours booked with Artviva for the day.

The first which started at 9.30am was ‘The Original Florence Walk’, a 3 hour tour which took us to several churches to see the frescoes and statues, to the Piazza della Signoria which contains the Palazzo Vecchio, the Uffizi Gallery, the Loggia dei Lanzi, Palace of the Tribunale della Mercanzia, the Uguccioni Palace, the grand fountain of Neptune and of course, most famously a copy of the statue of Michelangelo’s David. The Loggia has many fabulous sculptures including a favourite piece of mine, the marvelous Rape of the Sabine Women by Giambologna and Benvenuto Cellini’s bronze sculpture of Perseus. Finally we went to the Duomo where we heard more history and stories of the Medici’s and got to look at the fantastic art. Our guide was Cynthia and she was very entertaining and informative, and was also kind enough to suggest other places to visit and gave me a recommendation for a jeweller so I could get some charms for my bracelet. Once the tour finished I went for quick look round the shops, bought a pannini for lunch and made my way back to the office for the second tour of the day.

This tour was ‘Masterpieces of the Uffizi Gallery’ and was conducted by Christina. Also taking the tour were the husband and wife couple that I had gone on the Oltrarno tour with. It gave us easy access to the Gallery (no 3 hours of queuing to get in) and we got to see the best of the Renaissance art housed within. Christina is an art historian so she also showed us other works of art that she felt were worth checking out and then suggested many others that we should see before we left. It was amazing to see such fantastic works as the ‘Birth of Venus’ and ‘Primavera’ by Botticelli in real life. I really enjoyed the tour, but the heat and all the walking was beginning to take its toll, especially as the Uffizi has a lot of stairs. I could have happily spent all afternoon in the Uffizi, but of course I had booked another tour and had to get back to the office to pick it up (the worst part of the tours was always ending up miles away from the office and having to walk back again). On the way out I bumped into the mother and daughter couple from the previous night’s tour and had a chat with them before they headed off to see the Pitti Palace. En route I stopped in Oro Due, the jeweller that Cynthia had suggested and bought a beautiful Florencian Iris set with a ruby for the stunningly cheap price of £55. It is an old fashioned artisan shop selling gold in the old way, the price is dependent on the level of craftsmanship and the price of gold bullion on the day. They have many stunning pieces and will definitely be one of my places to visit the next time I go to Florence.

Finally I made my way to join the last tour of the day ‘The Original David Tour’. I have to admit I did think about dropping out of this as I was quite tired from all the walking by then and wasn’t sure I could manage the walk up to the Accademia dell’Arte but Christina was taking this tour too and she talked me into going. Boy was I glad I did. Having seen the copy in the Piazza della Signoria I have to admit I wasn’t overly impressed by Michelangelo’s David, and wasn’t expecting anything much different with the original. However, once again at least with the tour I didn’t have to queue for hours. On the approach to what must be the most famous statue in the world, there are other statues by Michelangelo, namely ‘The Captives’ that are in various stages of completion. It is fascinating to see the figures emerging from the marble, as if rising from a bath. The figures were commissioned to go round the tomb of Pope Julius II. Originally there were supposed to have been 40 of them, a feat that Michelangelo could never have managed in his lifetime, although he accepted the commission anyway. Once you have passed these immense figures you finally get through to the alcove that David stands in. I will admit to being completely astonished at my reaction to the statue. It is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life and it almost reduced me to tears. After listening to Christina’s talk on the statue I spent a good 40 minutes just walking round it examining in detail the 18ft creation. Every part of it is exquisite, so perfectly carved that he looks as if he is just about to step off the pedestal at any moment, almost alive. Once I had recovered enough to move on I visited another room of various and generally rather good sculptures before finally leaving.

Walking back I stopped first for a lager at a roadside café and then for a large and lovely ice cream - hazelnut, tiramisu and straticelli. I had decided to make my way back over to Oltrarno and have dinner in another of the Piazza della Passera restaurants. As I walked towards the Ponte Vecchio I found another jewellers, Saccardi, selling charms at exceedingly reasonable prices and after a discussion with the owner purchased a small Ponte Vecchio and statue of David for less than £80! Definitely a bargain when a few minutes later I found the same charms for over 3 times the price in a jewellers on the Ponte Vecchio.

I wandered through the Oltrarno, browsing the shops and enjoying the completely different atmosphere to the other side of the river and eventually found 4Leoni. As it was fairly early I managed to get a table without too much trouble although it was at the back of this very popular restaurant (they have an extensive collection of pictures of the famous people who have eaten at this marvelous restaurant). The menu was completely in Italian but by now I was recognizing a few words and so managed to order my meal without any trouble. To start I had parma ham and melon with rustic bread, followed by tagliatelle pasta with black truffles. I decided to have some more of the Vernaccia di San Gimignano to go with it. Shortly after I sat down the table next to me was filled with an English couple who, I found out, once I got talking to them were on their honeymoon. They had been to Venice and Rome and were heading to Siena the following day. Obviously I got talking to them about the wedding and Siena in general and soon I was showing them the photos on my camera. At the end of the meal I didn’t want a dessert, already having had the ice cream earlier, so instead had a Limoncello. Then I slowly wandered back over the Ponte Santa Trinita, but by now I’d been out of the hotel for about 15 hours and had walked about the same number of miles and was completely knackered. So instead of the intended 3 mile walk home I found a taxi in the Piazza Santa Trinita. The taxi dropped me at the hotel and after quickly dropping my stuff off in the room I wandered down to the bar from the previous night where I had a glass of wine and ‘chatted’ to some of the people there. However, I really was shattered so I soon made my way back to the hotel and went to bed.

Monday 6 August 2007

I had a long leisurely breakfast before saying my goodbyes to Jo and Paul and the rest of the wedding party that were left. The hotel suggested I get a bus to Florence rather than the train as they are more regular, quicker and cheaper. I got a taxi to the bus station as it was at right at the top of Siena and I couldn’t face lugging my case all that way uphill by hand. Once there I queued in the underground ticket office and was soon on my way – a bargain at only 5 euros. I settled back to enjoy a picturesque journey through classic Tuscan countryside and about an hour later was at the bus station in Florence. The first thing I noticed was how much hotter it was than Siena.


As I didn’t have a clue where my hotel was I decided to get a taxi which involved leaving the bus station, going through the shopping centre and out to the train station where the taxi rank was. The ride to my hotel took me past all the historical sights, a mini tour in itself. One of my requirements for my Florence stay was to have ‘a room with a view’ and preferably a view of the Arno (yep I know, I’m an old romantic and I love the Merchant Ivory film, watching it only days before I went to Italy and seeing it again when I returned, with a whole new perspective). I had booked the Ville sull’ Arno as it was an original Florentine Villa overlooking the Arno and it had a swimming pool. It really was a beautiful hotel and I had a lovely room that was actually on the river, opposite the rowing club, although it was a little further out of town than I had expected. Having spent a few minutes unpacking, I sat down on my balcony over the river to watch the rowers and ate the roll I had bought the previous day. Eventually I headed towards the town centre to explore and find the office of the trip I was booked to go on that evening.


It was when I started walking towards town that I realised just how far out it was (it turned out to be 3 miles). According to reviews I’d read they’d said it was 15 minutes from the old town, and it was – the very outskirts of the old town, however to get to the Ponte Vecchio took another 30 minutes of walking in 90 degree temperatures without any shade, although to be fair it was a pleasant walk along the banks of the Arno. I finally managed to find the office for the tour, but had some time to wait so wandered to the Piazza della Republica where I stopped at one of the restaurants and had picci pasta with wild mushrooms and a beer. It was delightful to sit under the canopy that was spraying water to cool you down and just watch the world go by. Soon it was time to meet for the tour that was run by Artviva.

The tour I had chosen was an evening walk around the Oltrarno (the other side of the river). It was a relaxing tour with a small group – only 5 of us, the others being Americans (a mother and daughter and a married couple). The tour guide Christina was incredibly knowledgeable about Florence and the Medici’s. She took us over the Ponte Vecchio, stopping to explain its history (and to warn us not to buy any gold from there) and through ancient cobble stoned streets, where we saw the Palazzo Pitti and heard scandalous tales of murder and mayhem. We saw a medieval hospice in the Piazza Santo Spirito where Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci used to do secret autopsies and saw artisans workshops virtually out of the Renaissance. She took us to the Piazza della Passera, which she said contained the 3 best places to eat in the whole of Florence and finally to a wine bar where we had a glass of Vernaccia di San Gimignano. We had all enjoyed the evening so much that we decided to stay together and headed back to the Piazza where we got a table at one of the aforementioned restaurants and enjoyed a lovely meal with another bottle of the Vernaccia. I had the Florentine steak, which was cooked perfectly and sliced thinly over a green salad.

Eventually, we made our way back over the river and said our goodbyes and I walked back to the hotel, stopping at an outdoor bar in the local park for a last glass of wine.I was amazed at how busy the place got on a Monday night, soon a large group of people had arrived and they started talking to me, a bit of a problem as none of them spoke English and obviously my Italian hadn’t improved any. However, they soon had me sitting in their group and all took turns to try and talk to me and make me feel at ease in the bar, which was a really nice thing for them to do. I didn't stay long, but felt it was a really good end to the evening.

(Note: the pictures were taken on the last day of my holiday just before the monsoon started. the original photos were lost with my camera)