Florence is crazy with traffic and no drive areas, we decided to stay in a lovely B&B south and take the local bus. Florence (Firenze) is magnetic, romantic and busy. Return time and again and you still won’t see it all. Stand on a bridge over the Arno river several times in a day and the light, mood and view changes every time. Surprisingly small, Florence is the cradle of the Renaissance, its narrow streets evoke a thousand tales.
Florence’s cathedral, the Duomo, is the city’s most iconic landmark. Capped by Filippo Brunelleschi’s red-tiled cupola, it’s a staggering construction whose breathtaking pink, white and green marble facade and graceful campanile (bell tower) dominate the medieval cityscape. Cathedral planning began in 1296 with a round hole in the roof awaiting a person with a technique to build a dome. The dome, the largest in the world for the next 300 years, was finished in 1436, 140 years later.
Home to the world’s greatest collection of Italian Renaissance art, Florence’s premier gallery occupies the Uffizi. The art was bequeathed to the city by the Medici family in 1743 (great art patrons, Michelangelo lived with them when studying sculpture) on condition that it never leave Florence. David a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture created between 1501 and 1504, by Michelangelo is a 4.34-metre, 5.17-metre with the base marble statue of a standing male nude. Some think it is the finest piece of sculpture ever created.
Art, architecture, the Arno River and pizza. That is what I remember most about Florence.
Karen was also reading Dan Browns Inferno, the story, set in Florence made fiction turn real.
