Florence Italy

The beautiful city of Florence (Firenze) - Italy

Last year (2010) I visited Florence - Italy for 10 days, which in retrospect was quite a long stay. However it was thoroughly enjoyable and the aesthetic appeal of the city never gets old. At one point I walked up the stairs to the Piazelle de Michelangelo of which there are 600 steps (I made that up but it sure did feel like 600). It's said that with each step you absolve one of your sins, so if you have a lot of sins by the time you reach the top you should be sinless. Not sure if that's true but i definitely had some pounds of weight absolved by the time I reached the top and not to mention it was 30 degrees. But let me tell you, it was well worth the effort. The view from the top is amazing, I could sit for hours just looking out over the city of Florence.

Il Duomo - Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore

When you go to Florence you have to be ready for some serious walking, there are buses that run in and around the city but let's face it what foreigner knows how to use a bus :D <- well this foreigner for one. Another great spectacle of Florence is Il Duomo - Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. I think the ticket price was about 8 or 10 euros if I remember correctly. It's worth every cent. At first you walk up some narrow stair cases and there are a lot of stairs. After a while you reach an entrance high up the leads onto a circular walkway around the inner dome and above you is the dome itself with the most amazing painting. The painting cover the inner dome in it's entirety is The Last Judgement, covering 3,600 metres squared. The painting was started in 1568 by Giorgio Vasari and Frederico Zuccari and would finish in 1579. That's 11 years on one painting, they must have had a great chiropractor.

Uffizzi

Art galleries aren't for everyone so you may or may not want to visit the Uffizzi. While I enjoyed it to a certain extent after a while I was ready to leave. I think I walked around for 2 hours and saw the majority if not all of the paintings and the one thing I noticed is the style in which the paintings are done, which is to say they are all very similar in contrast and subject matter. Once you've seen the paintings on the main floor you then go down and see Carvaggio's exhibition, which you'll find to be a much darker form of painting both in light and subject. Lots of blood is the one thing that sticks out in my mind from Carvaggio's paintings.

Ponte Vecchio

Literally translated as 'Bridge Old' or Old Bridge. The one downfall of this bridge is the over abundance of tourists. It must be the busiest Bridge in the world. As you squeeze past other tourists, you'll see on both sides of the bridge lines of Jewellery shops. How you would choose which one to go in is beyond me, they all look very similar and are rather expensive. Half way across the bridge there is an opening where you can look straight down the river, which is quite a nice view if you enjoy it long enough without getting bumped by tourists.

Gelato

Italian ice cream. A visit to Italy wouldn't be complete without tasting Gelato. If you do indulge yourself make sure you don't go to the Gelaterias in the centre of Florence as the quality of these are not as good as those further outside. You can also tell a good Gelataria by the colour of the ice cream, if it's a bright colour go somewhere else. You want something that is close to the natural colour.

Restaurants

There are some very nice restaurants in the area but try to eat outside of the centre as that's where the most touristy/bad quality food is. You don't have to go far to find some nice restaurants but please venture out a bit. Also you'll find that the further out of the centre you go the less English they speak in the restaurants, so it's advisable to learn a tiny bit of Italian before you go. Even if you only learn "Vorrei...." which means "I would like...." and then you can just point at things on the menu :)

Accommodation

I stayed at a very nice bed and breakfast just 20mins from the centre of Florence, it was very nice stay and the two Owners Stefano and Leanardo were two great guys who are very helpful. The bed and breakfast is called 1900 ArteVita.

Travelling to and from Florence

The best way to get to Florence is by flying to the airport in Florence however not all of the airlines fly there. So your next best choice is to fly to Pisa and then get either a bus or train from there to The Santa Maria Novella train station. The bus will also take you to the train station. Then there are taxis there which can then take you to your hotel. The bus service that runs from Pisa to Florence, is the terravision bus and you'll find it's quite cheap. You can book online or buy a ticket when you get to the airport. The ticket office is on your left just after you get out of arrivals. Then when you've bought your ticket exit the building which there is a door right in front of you and then turn right when you’re outside, you'll see a big car park on your left.

I hope that you will visit this beautiful city one day and enjoy it as much as I did.

One last thing you have to see and hear in Florence. When you are there, go to the Piazza della Repubblica, there you will find the most amazing street opera singer by the name of natalia lopushanskaya, she and her partner Anatoliy Grischuk (who plays the accordian) were amazing. Words cannot describe listening to them, so please check them out.