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Published: October 2nd 2011
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Sept 29: Our only full day in Florence.
We headed out from the hotel and wandered through afew streets and the San Lorenzo leather market before arriving at the Duomo (the giant Cathedral in town). We had been going to visit the Duomo and the famous Brunelleschi’s Dome on the end of it, but there was already a line up so we decided to climb the church bell tower instead – the Campanille. It was started in 1344 by Giotto. It is 84 m high and 414 steps to the top. A very long ways on a hot day!! But we made it and the view was spectacular; Both of the Duomo and the dome and also of the rest of the city. By the time we came down the line ups were even longer so we decided to leave that for Saturday morning. We left the Duomo area and started to wander the shops and winding streets around it. We both just love wandering down whatever street you see even better than visiting the churches and museums. The city has such a great atmosphere.
Next we headed over to the Piazza de Santa Croce to visit the beautiful church there.
It is the largest Franciscan church in the world and many of the who’s who of Florence are buried right in the floor of the church. The exterior was beautiful marble and the interior was filled with frescoes and sculpture. Unfortunately they were refurbishing the central alter area so it was covered up – the pictures of it looked amazing so we were sad we missed that, but the rest was pretty beautiful anyways. Michelangelo, Dante and Galileo all have funeral shrines here, although Dante isn’t actually in his tomb(he’s buried elsewhere), and it took many years before the church accepted that heretic Galileo would be here.
After returning to our room for a bread and cheese snack break, Then it was hike back to the other side of the river because we wanted to tour the Boboli Gardens that are attached to the Pitti Palace. The palace was started by the Pitti family who were rivals to the Medicis. It was meant to outshine the Medicis and it did. But before it was fully completed they went bankrupt and the Medicis took it over, added on to the palace and built the huge gardens. There weren’t really any flowers
in the gardens but there were a few large fountains and quite a network of paths. They had even created 2 grottos where they had brought in the dripping cave stone and put them in a man made cave complete with frescoes and carvings. They certainly had a lot of money!
We found a nice outdoor cafe in the Oltrarno area and I had my favourite Caprese salad and an amazing dish of pasta with black truffle sauce. Claude had a bruschetta combo appetizer and then gnocci and pork in mushroom sauce. It was a good thing we had walked all day and still had a long walk back to the hotel. On the way back we took a different road and came across the lucky wild boar sculpture I had read about. He is in a market square and it is supposed to be lucky to rub his nose. So Claude did.
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