The Mysteries of Cathedral Dress Codes

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Today we've booked an all day walking tour of Florence. It's again very hot, and we worry how we'll go. We meet our guide for the morning part of the tour who introduces herself as Rose. She's pregnant and walks with the aid of crutch after breaking her ankle. Issy says that she thinks we can probably now stop worrying about the tour involving too much walking. Rose tells us that Florence originally derived its wealth from the lucrative textile trade. She says that we'll hear a lot here about the Medicis, who ruled Florence for about 300 years from the mid 1400s, and made their money as loan sharks masquerading as bankers. She tells us that Florence was the capital of Italy briefly in the late 1800s.

The first stop is the Galleria dell'Accademia which is next door to the Florence art school. By far its greatest claim to fame is as the home of Michelangelo's statue of David. The statue is stunning. The detail of the anatomy is remarkable, right down to his fingernails and the veins in his hands. Michelangelo didn't use a model because he didn't think that any real people were perfect enough. I was busy that day. Rose says that his feet are oversized and he looks like his ankles are swollen. This was quite intentional and was necessary to add more weight to the base to stop the whole thing from toppling over. She says that his hands are also oversized to make their detail visible when the statue was placed on a platform, as was originally intended. It has a glass barrier all around it which was apparently installed after it was attacked with a hammer by a "crazy man" in the 1990s. This is the same thing that happened to the Michelangelo statue in Saint Peter's in Rome. I wonder if it was the same crazy man, and if so what he had against Michelangelo. Rose says that the art school next to the Galleria is very good, but a lot of the graduates can't get jobs in Italy because of the poor economy, and the best graduates then leave to work overseas. She says that this is a problem for all professions in Italy, particularly in the public service which she says is now "really terrible".

Next stop is the Cathedral. A security guard stops Issy at the door. He tells her that she needs to cover her shoulders, so she pulls out a shawl. He then tells her that she needs to cover her knees, so she takes the shawl off her shoulders and wraps it around her legs. He's now happy. The logic of this is escaping me. The Cathedral is massive. Rose tells us that it's the third largest in Europe and the fourth largest in the world after Saint Peter's in Rome, Saint Paul's in London and a cathedral in Sao Paulo in Brazil. It's quite plain inside, and Rose says that if any of us have been to the cathedrals in Pisa and Siena we may be a bit disappointed at how plain this is by comparison. She says that if we're really enthusiastic we can climb the 463 steps to the top of the dome. She tells us that we need to be sure we're up to it before we start, as the stairs are very narrow and hot. Apparently a few days ago one half of a couple fainted on the way down, and the fire brigade then had to come in to rescue them. There's a strange looking medieval clock near the front door. This apparently works on a day starting at sunrise, so every few days it needs to be adjusted as the time of sunrise changes. That sounds like a lot of effort; I'm glad clock technology's improved over the centuries.

We walk towards Piazza Della Repubblica which seems to be completely surrounded by cafes. Rose tells us that a coffee here will cost one Euro if you take it away, but five Euro if you sit down. She says Italians never sit down. At that price I wonder why anyone would ever sit down. She says that there are lots of clothes and jewellery stores in this area, so there goes my plan to keep us away from these. Issy says she won't do the afternoon bit of the tour and will go shopping instead. I hope she's joking, but the expression on her face suggests otherwise.

Next stop is an apparently famous statue of a pig with water coming out of its mouth. Rose tells us that this is Florence's version of the Trevi Fountain. I think it's better than the Trevi Fountain; it isn't being renovated and has actual water coming out of it. Rose says that if we rub the pig's nose, and then put a coin in its mouth and make it fall into the grate below, we can be sure of coming back to Florence very soon. Issy and I both have a go; it seems that we should plan to go somewhere else next time we come to Europe.

We stop briefly in Piazza del Vecchio to look at the town hall, and then continue down to the river bank to the Ponte Vecchio. Rose says that this was the only bridge in Florence that wasn't destroyed by the Nazis after the Italians changed sides in World War Two. One theory is that Hitler spared it because he'd visited Florence previously and really liked it.

Issy decides to skip the afternoon tour of the Uffizi Gallery and rest up back at the hotel. Our guide Ciara tells our group that the gallery was built by the Medici family, and repeats what Rose said this morning about them being loan sharks. She says that they also managed to produce a couple of popes along the way, so their activities were clearly quite diverse. Their rule ended when they ran out of heirs, and they then bequeathed all the works in the gallery to the people of Florence. We can apparently take photos here, but the use of selfie sticks is banned. If this rule was applied everywhere in Italy I suspect half the street vendors would go out of business. We've had selfie sticks shoved in our faces by people wanting to sell them to us everywhere we've been. I don't understand the obsession with people wanting to take pictures of themselves. I thought that's what mirrors were for. Maybe they think that no one will believe they've been somewhere unless they have a photo of themselves standing in front of it. The gallery is huge, and is on four levels. Ciara tells us that they're trying to expand it, but when they started to dig the foundations they unearthed an ancient Roman necropolis, and this will now cause significant delays. It sounds like this might be problem all over Italy. I think I'd get a bit annoyed if I wanted to extend my house and then found the ruins of an ancient temple under my back yard. Highlights of the gallery include a round painting by Michelangelo which Ciara tells us is his only detachable painting known to exist (all his other known works are frescoes attached to the walls of churches), and Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" which looks familiar even to me who knows nothing about art. A small girl in our group points at something on one of the paintings. She doesn't actually touch it, but her finger gets too close and an alarm goes off. Ciara panics. She says that someone will now come and yell at her. I realise that there must be alarms all over the place, but they're all very well hidden. I wonder what happens if they have a fire here. I don't think that sprinklers spraying water all over the ancient masterpieces would do them too much good.

I'm awoken from my siesta by thunder, lightning and pouring rain, and it's suddenly much cooler. Outdoor dining is now off the agenda so we eat indoors at a restaurant on Piazza del Vecchio. I order a large beer which comes in a long stemmed glass about a foot high. The Who is playing, and I have visions of Keith Moon destroying drum kits, which doesn't quite seem in keeping with the high culture of Florence. Issy overdoes on whiskey and grand marnier and starts trying to flick breadcrumbs across the table into the top of my shirt with her fingers. When she gets tired of this she tries to do it with toothpicks instead. I think it might be time to go to bed.

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