Day 7: City Walks - Florence

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Tuesday, 25th October 2011

After an early morning attempt to Montevarchi to check out the Prada Space Outlet, we were back at Florence by lunch-time as planned. Armed ourselves with some take-aways from the local supermarket, we headed straight to our B&B to catch some rest while waiting for the afternoon rains to subside.

The heavy rains were reduced to a mere drizzle by the time we made our way out at 4pm in the afternoon. We were eager to check out the city's Duomo, reachable through a long stretch of shopping street along the main Via Nationale thoroughfare.

Overwhelmed by the number of churches and duomos we visited over the past few days, the Florence's version wasn't too captivating even though the Dome-shaped structure was attractive from a distance. At the time of our visit, some much-needed restoration works were carried out on the church's facade.

A brief stop at the Republique Square brought us to the newly-opened Hard Rock Cafe. Over here, I was tasked to bring back a piece of shot glass for Mr B. I'm not complaining over here since it was always nice to add to his ever expanding collection. Compared to my Ho Chi Minh City's attempt, the Hard Rock Cafe was easy to locate without having to ask the locals for directions.

Our walks continued through the city's historical core to cover the Uffizzi Gallery and ended at the nearby Vecchino Bridge's which afforded a great vista of the River Arno and its surrounds.

They say that Florence itself is just like a piece of living museum, all decked out in history waiting for visitors to uncover its atmospheric, walking streets. Certainly, it was easy to fall in love with this renaissance city, the capital of the Tuscany Region.

However, for the 3 of us, it was time to move on from here to our final stop in Italy, where visits to more churches were almost a guaranteed affair.

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