Advertisement
Published: July 16th 2009
So Florence, another very touristy town and has plenty to offer the hard core, see everything to see. After trekking down 1 road - with 3 names, from the train station we came onto our hostel and home for the next 4 nights and the most institutionalised one yet, but very comfortable.
Being Jay’s birthday I decided to take him out for dinner and a taste of some traditional food. Well after we found the restaurant we were inundated with food. Good wholesome, filling food and served without restraint. The meals were huge and I was full after the pasta course with the main and dessert to go. Needless to say we rolled out of the restaurant and staggered back to the hostel to full to do any socialising and off to bed to sleep off the meal.
Florence is the city where Michelangelo gave the gift to the community called David, of the David and Goliath type. He asked the Queen (?) of the time if he could use some abandoned slab of marble to work with and got the all okay and whola, the statue of David was the result. The original “David” is now safely tucked away from harm in an extremely boring overpriced museum that has taken the gift from Michelangelo to the people (it stood in the main square where a replica now stands for many decades for all to view and photograph) and hidden it from its intended gift to being a profitable commodity. There is staggering entry fee to see David and let’s face it there isn’t much else here to look at, and to top it off you are not to take photos.... go figure.
Back to the Statue of David, it’s huge. As a backpacker you become skilled in eavesdropping on tour guides here and there and this is what I learnt about Michelangelo and David. Michelangelo has sculpted David anatomically correct, that being in the way the muscles have been detailed are correct for the stance that he holds. Being based on the whole David and Goliath theme, Michelangelo has softened the theme by sculpting David holding the sling over his shoulder and not showing him holding the severed head of Goliath (very nice of him) and finally, a trait that is pure Michelangelo, he always sculpted hands big. It really is something very special to look at and was worth the 1 hour queue at the front to see.
After visiting “David” we made our way to the Cathedral. From the outside it’s very different, I am not sure what the architecture it has evolved from but has multi coloured tiles on the roof and an almost funky looking exterior walls. As usual it is embroidered with the standard angels and saints and stunning to look at. I think because it has a range of colours in the building it gives it some form of texture as well.
From here we headed towards the river and strolled around for the rest of the afternoon. We came to the Ufti Museum that has a huge corridor filled with statues of the famous sons of Florence and the Tuscany area, from Galileo to Michelangelo. This corridor will also connect you from the river to the square where the original David once stood and the replicate now stands. As you enter into this massive square there are replicas of many of the significant statues from what I would presume the Renaissance period and a massive water fountain that appears to be a tribute to Neptune.
As most things are shut on Monday’s we headed out on a slightly overcast day to Cinque Terre (Chin-ka-terra) which is an UNESCO world heritage stretch of coastline that spans over 5 small towns built into the small valleys where the surrounding mountains meet the Mediterranean and tourists are able to hike along trails linking the towns together. After a short 2 or so hours train ride from Florence we made it to La Spezia and got an all day train and trail pass to play with.
Catching a train to the last town and by far the biggest, Monterosso, we looked around for a bit and took some lovely postcard pictures it was decided to walk the mountain to Vernazza. Our map gives us a bit of an idea on the cross section of terrain each walk between towns is like and an approximate time to complete this is the second steepest mountain so why not hike it. I wouldn’t be wrong in saying I wasn’t a happy camper trudging up the mountain when we had a rail pass to take us in 5 minutes maximum to the next town but after my hissy fit I will admit to quietly enjoying the hike. The views looking back onto Monterosso were fabulous and coming into Vernazza stunning.
At Vernazza we rounded up some lunch, had a bit of a sit and recuperate time and decided we would catch the train to the next town and take the easier hike back up the mountain to Vernazza. As my luck would have it the train we caught was non-stop to the first town of the group, Riomaggiore. From Riomaggiore we walked our way back to the middle town around some of the most spectacular coastline one would ever be fortunate to see to Corniglia and time was against us to tackle the originally planned trek of Corniglia to Vernazza and we had to start heading home.
Cinque Terra is a must for anyone how is in this region. Take some good walking shoes, water and camera and be prepared to hike some serious trails but be pleasantly surprised on the flatter ones. We had heard about it thru Jay’s Mum and it turned out to be a highlight of our stay in Florence.
With a good sleep in and recovery from Cinque Terra we did a lazy trip out to Pisa the next day. Okay, the leaning tower of Pisa is just that. A leaning tower that attracts tourist everywhere and there isn’t much else to see or do. We thought we had done the touristy thing in Rome, this is so touristy it’s embarrassing so it was the standard take photo holding the tower up and then back on the train to escape.
Wednesday we had booked a tour of Tuscany. With a fantastic guide who actually designed the tours offered by the hostel herself she was quick with a laugh and joke and had some great information to go with it; like DaVinci’s Mona Lisa is said to have been painted in Tuscany with the Tuscan Hills as the backdrop. The day started off with a tour of a winery and morning tea and wine sampling and a great way to get to know the rest of the bus. From here it was off to lunch and as per the norm all the Aussies gravitated towards each other and a raucous time was had by all on our table and a few bottles of red consumed to go with it.
After our guide dragged us away from our lunch table we headed out to taste some of Italy’s after dinner “wine”, rocket fuel, poison whatever you wish to call it....they call it Grappa. It is made from the left over’s of wine making and is meant to assist with digestion and burns all the way down. So take a bus load of rather tipsy people, give them several shots of 40 & 60% proof Grappa and lots of faces contorting with the taste and it’s all a bit of good fun and somewhat noisier all of the sudden. Personally, I was not a fan of Grappa but each to their own however, I kind of like having a lining in my stomach which I am sure this Grappa would dissolve if had often enough.
The region of Tuscany itself is full of the rolling green plans of the vineyards and the odd castle like building scattered here and there. It is very pretty and peaceful and looks like a very idyllic way to live. It is somewhere that would be easy to find a nice B&B and disappear from the word and immerse oneself into the slow pace of life that seems to exist and return year after year.
With our final day being set aside to be lazy we gently wondered through Florence and when through the markets and enjoyed the last day in Italy before heading to Gryon, Switzerland.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.178s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 16; qc: 48; dbt: 0.0939s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Travellin J
Jo-Anne Smith
Patience is a virtue
Hi guys, as with rome you´ll need to be patient whilst we wait for surgical expertise to fix the damn laptop. jo