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Published: October 21st 2016
Florence
Peaceful reflectionShifting town again. 11.37 train today so once again could have a slow start to the day and no need to rush. Packed, ate, checked out, walked to the station and then waited for our train. Almost spot on time it arrived and we were onboard and underway. Travelling via the high speed train today which has a TV showing commercials and information as you go along and I did notice that at one point we were doing 174km/hr. Unfortunately for us our seats had us going backwards which wasn’t exactly great for poor Michele that suffers from motion sickness but thankfully she has her Ipod and could tune in and then out. The other thing that isn’t exactly perfect was the lack of luggage storage for an inner city train especially when 6 Aussies boarded with enough luggage to get them to Mars.
Arrived at the Florence station and as per just about everywhere in the world today the entrance/exits are guarded by heavily armed army personnel. We were following a woman that was busy looking at her mobile phone and we
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Cathedral and Baptistery laughed as she walked straight into an army guy who was holding his machine gun against his chest. She barely looked up after bumping into him but just stepped around him and kept going whilst the army guy had that look on his face like “seriously?” I know he was wearing camouflage but it doesn’t work too well in a train station.
We Left Venice under cloud, travelled in part sunshine and disembarked in Florence in rain. Looked pretty set in so no use just waiting for it to stop but just headed off to find our hotel. A 15 minute walk to get there and we were fairly damp on our arrival, but at least we were home and could dump our bags. Too wet for sightseeing but perfect weather to get some laundry done and especially as we passed one on the way to the hotel we knew where to go. Saturday or perhaps a wet Saturday must be the perfect day to do laundry as the laundromat was packed especially with young Italian men in suits carrying bags that seemed to contain a month’s worth of dirty laundry. Perhaps I could suggest any single
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Close up of Michelangelo's Wood carved Jesus women that are looking for a young Italian lover could find no better place than a laundromat on a Saturday.
By the time we had our laundry done the sun was out so we could now look over the town. Had only a short look around till we spotted a bar with happy hour and that stopped us in our tracks. Shelley did her usual Italian thing with a Spritz while I did the Aussie bum thing with a beer. Afterwards we went to have dinner at the nearby central markets which was absolute pandemonium so went seeking a quieter alternative but never found it. Grumpy pants Scott walked out of three restaurants because they were too noisy and couldn’t give a price list for the drinks, before Shelley put her foot down and demanded on one that was still crowded, noisy and had an incomplete drinks menu. Food was very good, drinks prices were reasonable, and there was no tourist tax at the end so it was okay – except it was still crowded and noisy.
Day 265 Sunday 9th October 2016 – Florence Florence
Half way point in a usual line up Well I (Scott) had planned on getting up early to watch the very last “V8 only” Bathurst 1000 which is sort of like witnessing the crucifixion of Christ with perhaps a little bit more profane language, spilled motor oil and flames but discovered that I couldn’t stream the event without paying and I blame Rupert Murdoch – you bastard. Not getting to see the race did allow me to sleep in without interruption and prepare me for the tourist hell that is Florence – well so I thought. Shelley had planned out the whole day last night and like an utter bastard that I am I just threw those plans out the window. Those that know me may be aware that I am slightly agoraphobic and absolutely cannot stand more than about three people in close proximity at any one time so places like Prague and Florence are a living hell for me. My other frailty is that I cannot stand queues, don’t really mind waiting in line but hate queue jumpers and disorganized shit fights which pretty much sums up any entrance to sites in Florence.
First thing this morning without a coffee injection (bad mistake)
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Cathedral dome from the tower we went off to see Michelangelo’s statue of David and the line up was beyond astronomical and after waiting in line for a few minutes a really lovely tour guide came up and explained that we were in the wrong line. Really grateful she helped us but when we saw the line we should have been in realised that I really didn’t care to see a slab of cut marble. Ohhh I know everyone is going to gush about how fabulous this piece of marble is and “oh my God you just have to see it”, well don’t really care, and let’s face it, it is just a piece of stone with a small penis. Moved on through the scrum that is Florence to another art museum we wanted to see and discovered that they had changed the opening days and it was closed today.
Then walked onto our next site which was some plaza that was filled with old marble, a huge gold turtle, a few segways and a thousand selfie sticks. The next museum we wanted to visit had what appeared to have 4 doors with a thousand people lined up at each with no
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View of the Baptistery from the tower clear idea of which was the right entrance so at this point I was over Florence. Not sure that I am a great fan of Italian art but sort of wanted to immerse myself in it to see if I could be proven wrong on my assumptions but I guess it didn’t matter as it would have probably been another endless parade of Mary and baby Jesus. Oh I know this is the cradle of art and the renaissance and all that nonsense but perhaps it is also the cradle of tourist hype – just sooooooo over it.
I reckon by now you can guess that I had driven Michele almost to tears but thankfully we stumbled on to a local flea market where at least we didn’t have to queue to see dribble and I could chill a bit and Shelley could buy a hat that looked like something from the 1930’s. Headed home for a break from the madness and then went out in the afternoon to see if the crowds had eased at the attractions and what an amazing surprise – they hadn’t. There was only one thing to do – get drunk. I
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water spouting tits had driven myself half mad with dealing with the crowds today and not being able to cope with the crowds and upsetting Shelley with the disappointment of not being able to see the sites she wanted to see
Day 266 Monday 10th October 2016 – Florence Travelling for me is like a roller coaster, a low is always followed by a high. Whenever I have a bad day I just know that the next day will be a pearler, which can make me feel good at the end of a bad day, but of course the pessimist in me kicks in at the end of a good day knowing that the next day will be bad. So today ended up being a far better day than yesterday, I settled down and understood what the city of Florence had to offer and what I had to do and that I needed to keep my cool to keep Michele from hitting me (again). Started the day with a long discussion on an end date to our holidays and final destinations which perhaps helped both of us coping with “what the
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So what does it all mean? hell are we doing?” From here we went out and got breakfast at a café and what should have cost 14 Euros cost 20 Euros – should have flipped out but I did that yesterday and today was another day.
From here we wandered down to the Florence Cathedral, picked up tickets and joined the queue to view the interior. The Cathedral would have to be one of the most incredible religious structure for its exterior but internally it is fairly plain except for the soaring gothic ceiling and perhaps one of the greatest painted domes. Despite walking through with a thousand people you do feel like you are in the belly of a whale this space is enormous. Shelley stopped and did her whole family religious thing and lit a candle for her Mum who is facing down yet another major operation, plus thoughts and a candle for my family, and figures every bit helps, she has tried Russia, Georgian and Greek Orthodox so we are now at the Catholics and she will be seeking out a witch doctor later in the week.
Next on the agenda was a walk up the tower
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Have no idea why? attached to the church which is 85 metres high and is ascended by very narrow stairs that acts as an entry and exit. Italians are not renowned for their organizational skills and perhaps their bad reputation is centered on running this tourist site. The stair up gets narrower and narrower as you ascend and the last stretch is a horror of a narrow stone spiral staircase. There was a long line to go up the last stretch and for about five minutes nobody was moving, but eventually we started to ascend and soon came across a freaked out woman holding a child coming down and then a guy with a young girl who was ascending on her bum one step at a time slowly – ahh so that is what the hold up was. Should have abused the stupid idiot for not picking up his child and carrying her down because soon discovered that for his stupidity the entire route up was choked with other people trying to get down. The passage was tight for one person, let alone for two people passing, but once you started there was no stopping or turning back, and soon people were shouting and
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Tasty, tasty humans starting to panic. Thankfully Michele held her shit together and ploughed ahead and kept climbing. The spiral staircase was the worst because we were on the inside with next to no foothold and knowing missing a step could result in a human avalanche. Got to the top and have never been so glad to exit a stair before – even Cheops Pyramid was easier. Whilst at the top we met a woman who had spent the entire morning queueing and this was only her second site she had visited, and was pretty much over her Florence experience. Took in the view from the top and before leaving the staff at the cathedral finally did something and started controlling the crowds so that it was a far easier descent.
From this nightmare we walked down to the Bargello museum which is supposedly furnished with some of Florence’s finest sculptures. Absolutely loved the building that housed the artwork but absolutely hated the objects inside. As you can guess I have developed a bit of a hatred for religious art (seen way too much of the stuff) and not much of a fan of stuff made during the Renaissance –
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Looking down from the cathedral tower yes I don’t know what I am doing in Florence either. To emphasize my thought there was a marble sculpture of a woman that had water spouting from her tits – this is high art? I am so sorry for all the Italian art fans out there but give me ancient Greek or Islamic art any day, this stuff is not my scene.
Today was cold with a strong wind blowing and unfortunately we were little prepared for it so decided at 4pm to head home for a break. Was going to do another church but how many can you do in one day before you go postal. At 6 we headed out for a beer and a feed at (you guessed it) an Italian restaurant. I must admit that it does feel weird that an Italian restaurant is the local feed. The place we ate at is the same from two nights ago and is pretty good except tonight a busload of noisy tourists moved in while we were eating.
Day 267 Tuesday 11th October 2016 – Florence Today we should have been moving on but
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Cathedral tower we ended up staying on an extra night because we were struggling with planning ahead, blogging and also being a tourist. Unfortunately, we had to move room within the hotel as it was booked pretty solid. The room we were offered for the extra night and took was actually a small single bed room, and I was surprised Shelley wanted it knowing how well I can snore. I just hate having to pack my bags to just drag them down the hall to another room but I guess it is better than having to drag them across to the other side of town.
First job of the day was walking down to the train station and picking up tickets for getting out of town tomorrow which was thankfully a quick and easy process particularly when the train station was utter chaos. From here we walked down once again to see Michelangelo’s David but again the lineup was huge and it was now starting to drizzle so standing in the rain to see chiseled marble wasn’t going to happen. Wandered down to the baptistery and this was fabulous to look at, although we did find it far more
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Who wants head? Byzantine than Italian and the gold tiled dome was incredible. I guess we are more interested in the Byzantine style of religious art and in particular mosaic work and it is hard to beat the Baptistery. We both just loved the mosaic of hell with a creature eating humans as if they were potato chips. The drizzle was continuing so we wandered into the Museum Dell Opera del Duomo which was the original site of the workshop for the building of the cathedral and was actually the location where Michelangelo carved David as it was going to be mounted on the church. Interesting museum as it had lots of details and artifacts on the cathedral and how it changed over the years. Didn’t realise how they had changed the façade over the years and the museum contained some of the marble statues and elements from the medieval façade. Of course some of what was in there was as boring as toe nail clippings and had me dozing on chairs while Shelley absorbed it all.
Went to line up for the walk up to the dome of the cathedral but the waiting line went past the 1 hour
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Got to love a good crowd mark and it was now raining. Don’t mind walking in the rain but do not like standing in the rain (yes I am strange) so we wandered onto another church but in the end the rain got heavier so had to return to our small cramped room. At 4.30 the rain stopped so we headed out for a drink and yet another feed of Italian – starting to crave Thai food. Tomorrow we are heading onto Naples, cannot say that I have enjoyed Florence, and in fact I think this whole town is a huge tourist trap, but Michele has warned me to expect the very worst in the next town. She was there 30 years ago and she loved it, but it wasn’t exactly a nice town then and from all we have read it has not got better – Scott’s short temper may well be tested.
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taracloud
Tara Cloud
OMG--nearly peed my pants reading this!
Curmudgeons unite--crowds, queues--no thank you. I know it's a chance to breathe in and out, a la Buddhist mode, but I prefer to avoid and go in the really low season--like I was here at Christmas, though when exiting the Duomo after Xmas service and giving gypsy/Roma beggars a couple of dollars, they stole all of my money--bad form. Shocked that it was so crowded in Oct--maybe it's high season forever now in Europe. Loved your story of none-ascending the Duomo's tower--so Italian! Napoli is bound to be bedlam, but hope you make it to Herculaneum and not just the more crowded Pompeii. And I so recommend you stop by Sucre and me on your way home. Fabo, cheap and Shelley and I can ogle churches, Scott and I can commiserate on our most absurd, crowded tourist sites and we can eat in restaurants, which I never did my five years in Europe. I waiting!