After our trip to Cinque Terre, we returned to Florence since it was the nearest place, with plans to head to Rome for the final stretch of the trip.
The first time in Florence was more of a kind of walkabout, starry-eyed exploration kinda thing. This time, since we had a few extra days to prepare after our last second disaster change of plans, we had booked a couple of things of interest and came in with more intent.
We didn't get to see Michelangelo's David. I'm totally fine with this. The fact is I've seen stuff like that and Mona Lisa online so many times it's practically embedded into my brain. I'm pretty sure, like all previous examples in my mind (including the Colosseum in Rome), once you see something so well documented in your head you just find it really hard to be impressed, often forcing yourself to believe it's a lot cooler than it really feels.
My alternative to this plan was something a little less overwhelmingly popular, but no less stunning:
Pitti Palace and Boboli Gardens.
In short, if you don't manage to go to the Vatican down in Rome, this is the perfect alternative. The garden is considered the greatest in all of Europe and the palace is absolutely flooded with incredible art from ancient times, as well as some permanent exhibitions of fashion through the ages and some contemporary local art.
You get to roam around and see all the different rooms, learn through paintings, and best of all, keep cool with relatively decent air conditioned rooms. This was really important, because we had just spent an hour or so in the gardens.
I wanted to spend significantly longer there but even I must admit it was getting unbearably hot and it was all somehow uphill no matter which direction you went. To be honest I was slightly disappointed in the Gardens mostly because we picked the wrong season for it, so we cut it short and headed to the palace. Here's some pics from both:
I want to put special emphasis on the detail in these works of art. Thankfully I had my super zoom phone camera. Take a look at this!
Sunset
We went to a famous hill to see the sunset over Florence. Imagine that skyline! Well, no need to imagine, It's right here:
Man, I couldn't look away from the smooth, orange river...
This was super chock-full of people but we managed to get a space and enjoy the show. There were some really cool vibes here with some guitarists performing Metallica on acoustic to an audience on steps and such.
To get here back to town was a 15 minute bus ride which cost me... 8p (10 cents)!
The Accident
We were walking around the market (kind of like London's Borough Market) when suddenly we heard the loudest, heavy-duty SLAM, followed by the most blood-curdling scream I had heard in at least a couple of days. something happened and it sounded painful.
We didn't see this, as there was already a huge crowd gathering moments after it happened, but we were metres away and I did see a pool of blood.
It didn't take long to figure out what happened. How it happened though, remains a mystery to me.
It seems Italy may not be very conscious about health and safety. All around Florence there are these giant, cast iron trash cans. I'm not kidding. Painted black, and as heavy as a cast iron skillet if the skillet was half the size of an adult man.
It appears one of these - which due to the sun baking down was about as hot as a cast iron skillet straight from the stovetop, too - somehow fell onto the leg/legs of a woman. In my head, I can't imagine those not being amputated after that, but maybe she was lucky.
Confused, I went to the nearest heavy duty trash can to attempt to push it over and it was extremely heavy, and more importantly, scalding hot. I couldn't touch it for more than a moment. Perhaps the 'accident' was malicious?
The next day when we were walking through the area again, we saw the alleged criminal trash can.
More Architecture
Weirdly, the first time we were here we never even came across the famous Duomo atop the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. This time we caught it and holy cripes this building is a stunner!
Notice how the repairs on the left are 'hidden' under a disguised sheet mimicking the actual facade!
We never got to go in again partly due to tickets being unavailable at short notice, but also partly because I read the outside was far more impressive than the inside, and the inside requires some several thousands of steps to get up to the rooftop which just didn't seem worthwhile in this Italian summer weather.
But for real, the exterior was unbeatable!
Off to Rome
We were only here overnight so that's pretty much all we had time for, unless you include all the food touring not shown!
Florence is quite small, in all the good ways, and I was just getting used to it. Going to Rome was almost a culture shock in terms of size and population density. It took a few hours to adjust!