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Published: June 12th 2012
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The Long And Winding Road
Part of the road from Urbania to Florence - note the "switchbacks" to enable traffic to climb up and down the mountains Sunday, 10th June, 2012 - Florence At 7:30 am this morning, we left for a day trip to Florence organised by Gail’s school – about 3½ hours away by coach.
The trip there was through rugged mountainous terrain with lots of switchback roads to slow rise up the mountainous terrain, flat open country and high speed (110 kph) freeway.
On arrival, we were taken to the lookout over the city of Florence – a spectacular view both over the city and around the lookout itself. There were thousands (?) of people there – tourists and locals – there was some sort of vintage vehicle rally on, and they had all their cars and motor cycles beautifully displayed. There were hawkers selling items; even a North American Indian dressed in full regalia. Our guide for the day gave us 10 minutes to take some photos then re-board the bus for the trip into the city proper. Of course, there was one couple that didn’t listen and they disappeared – not to be seen again on the day (they apparently spent the night in Florence, then made their own way back to Urbania).
We were dropped at a spot
about 15 minutes walk from the main attractions. Gail & I had made bookings at the “Galleria degli Uffizi” to see some masterpieces by Botticelli, Michelangeo, Leonardo Da Vinci and many others. You could easily spend several days there, but we had but a short time to see some of the most profound works of the renaissance – guess we’ll have to come back again!
Then it was off to the “Galleria dell ‘Accademia” – it was incredibly difficult to find for an establishment that houses one of the most magnificent works of art of all time, Michelangelo’s David. Again, we had prebooked our tickets, so we were able to skip the long queues. After seeing that magnificent piece, you may never need to see another statue again. It was truly overwhelming; magnificent. Again, time was short and we did not get to look through the rest of the gallery as much as we would have liked, however it was well worth the effort to see what we could.
Gail found Cupid in one of the piazzas while we were doing the walking around – see photo………
We rounded one corner
and were absolutely blown away by the splendour of The Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (Basilica of Saint Mary of the Flower). See photo - but it just doesn't do it justice. The photos at this web site Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-languageƐ mso-fareast-languageƐ mso-bidi-languageƐ}
http://www.google.it/search?q=The+Basilica+di+Santa+Maria+del+Fiore&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=mBi&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=qvvWT8HOKtCK4gSPko32Ag&ved=0CFQQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=612 may give you an idea as to the grandeur of it all.
The next port of call was Ponte Vecchio, the only remaining medieval stone closed-spandrel segmental arch bridge over the Arno River at its narrowest point after the Germans retreated at the end of World War II (many others have since been rebuilt). It is now covered in specialist jewellery stores mainly featuring gold. We picked up a beautiful Florentine coin necklace and chain – supposedly for Gail’s birthday but that is weeks away yet!
We got back to Urbania at about 8.30pm
Rings and Things
The shopfront of one of the stores on the Ponte Veccio Bridge and by the time we’d had dinner with friends from the school it was quite late.
As it was the Catholic feast day of Corpus Christi, there was a huge procession in Urbania earlier in the day. Unfortunately we were unable to be in both places at the same time. On returning from our trip, we could see some of the results of the beautiful floral arrangements that were left on the buildings, paths and roads – most had been damaged by foot traffic during the day, but the effort that must have been put in on Sunday before the procession all over the town must have been significant.
Yet another fabulous day in Italia.
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