Advertisement
Published: October 15th 2012
Edit Blog Post
So my travels started with a wedding in Florence. First one i've been to and what better place than Florence to go. I spent the first 2 nights staying a street away from the Piazza Della Signoria, and just a couple of minutes walk from the Duomo. The remaining nights I stayed at the PLUS Hostel, which i'll write a bit about further down. The morning before the wedding was spent exploring the city. We walked to the Piazza Del Duomo, which was rather incredible. There wasn't a queue going in to the cathedral so we spent a little while inside.
We had lunch in the Piazza Della Signoria. Here was the Tower of Palazzo Vecchio, used as the seat of the city's government and to protect them from attack. The tower itself it 95m high and quite an impressive sight. The Loggia dei Lanzi is in a corner of the piazza where several statues are kept. They too were impressive.
The wedding was held in the 4 Seasons, Florence and was stunning. The weather was perfect, as was the ceremony, the dinner and the night that followed.
The next couple of days were spent visiting the sites
of Florence. Hungover, we walked to the top of the Palazzo Vecchio which was some 300 hundred steps. There were warnings of claustrophobia and vertigo climbing to the top. As someone who suffers from both I was rather wary of this. Luckily it was nothing to worry and the view from the top, although a little obstructed because of the parapet, was worth it. I didn't get the chance to go to the top of the Duomo but I think the view from the top of there would be more rewarding than the tower, although from seeing the queue for the Duomo it'll take a lot longer to get up there.
Michelangelo's David was a must see, so we went to the Accademia where it's housed. We were there around 1pm and the queue was pretty long. You book tickets for a certain time slot so you can jump the queue. Although these are more expensive (12 euros I think) it was worth it as the David was the only piece we wanted to see in there. Sadly don't have any photos as photography isn't allowed but it was a very impressive sculpture. Almost everyone who was looking at
it commented on how large his hands are compared to the rest of his body. Being rather worse for wear from the night before we sat on the benches that are behind the statue, and spent the next 10 minutes staring at 2 sculptured marble cheeks. Thankfully Michelangelo didn't put too much detail back there.
Had a bit of a nightmare with my camera a few days into my trip. Couldn't load any photos onto a computer so had to take it in to a camera shop where they did some software recovery nonsense on it. Long story short is that instead of just getting the 100 or so photos that should have been on the memory card, they recovered 640 photos, each one of them I was charged for. The guy felt sorry for me so gave me a 'student discount' but still ended up paying €120. Moral of the story is don't buy dodgy memory cards from China.
I stayed at the PLUS Hostel after wedding which was a pretty cool place. The first hostel i'd stayed in where i'd been in a shared room. The hostel was huge, more like a hotel than hostel. The
room was big and was clean. All of the bottom floor was the bar, which extends outside and also has a pool. The bar was pretty crazy in the evenings. They sold buckets of cocktails for €15 which were pretty much all booze. It was pretty cheap, €18 a night. Met some really interesting people and would definitely recommend to stay here.
Best part of Florence for me was the the Palazzo Pitti, the Bobli Gardens and the Piazzale Michelangelo. All of which are on the other side of the river to the Duomo. Walk across the Ponte Vecchio. It's a very, very old bridge that has lots of old shops on it, all of which sell gold jewerelly. Probably a little pricey to go there for the shopping, but a very cool bridge. The Palazzo Pitti, also called the Pitti palace, was bought by the Medici family in the 1500's. Inside the palace are several museums - the silver and porcelain museum, as well as the costume gallery and modern art gallery. Behind the Pitti Palace are the Boboli Gardens. Covering 11 acres these stunning gardens have loads of sculptures and statues dotted around. There were a lot
of people who'd brought lunch and were lying in the grass which looked very chilled, and art students painting either one of the many statues or the incredible view down onto Florence.
A little walk away from the Pitti Palace is the Piazzale Michelangelo, which sits on top of a hill and has an incredible view of Florence. I went here during the day and sat on a set of stone steps to the side where you can see all of the Florence, and back down onto the Pitti Palace and Boboli Gardens. There was a guy busking here which made the experience that much better. Sadly he was moved along by the police, who were then on the receiving end of plenty of booing and the wrath of a rather small and manic Italian lady. I also came up here with a friend from the hostel to watch the sun go down and see the city by night. The Duomo is lit up and dominates the skyline. There weren't that many people sat up there at the time so it was very chilled, easy to get lost in your thoughts looking down onto a view like that.
Food - The food here is fantastic. Every meal excluding breakfast was either pizza or pasta and was quite cheap. Lunch was usually a large slice of pizza for a couple of euros, and dinner was between €6-€10 for a pizza or pasta dish. There are so many pizzerias and cafes around town, didn't take note of any in particular to recommend. Although I really enjoyed just sitting outside to eat, the tables are crammed pretty close together and we ended up speaking with most of the people we were sat next to. As someone who suffers from somewhat of a lactose intolerance I can't give much of an opinion in the way of the gelato. I had some and it was good, that's about it really.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.178s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 11; qc: 48; dbt: 0.121s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb