The ride was nice. We went through some very pretty country, including some mountains. Well, they were either mountains or just very tall hills. I was quite impressed actually. It was the kind of scenery you only see in movies. It was a long ride though – 2 hours and 45 minutes. I read and listened to the iPod throughout. I’ve never been a huge music fan, but that little gadget is one of the best purchases I’ve ever made. It’s like it provides a soundtrack for your life.
I got off the train in Florence and looked around the station for a bit. I didn’t really have to wait a full hour for him to arrive since my train was a little late anyway. I spotted our stop for lunch immediately and bought a map of the city from the tourism office. Then I sat down to study the map and wait. After a while his train showed up. I’m standing there waiting for him at the top of the platform when I notice this older, blonde guy with his shirt unbuttoned down to middle of his chest walking down from where he got off the train. I thought the guy looked incredibly familiar, but I wasn’t sure if he was who I thought he was until some Italian guy next to me started shouting “Great performance. Sting! Great performance!” He sort of smiled vaguely and gave a half-wave, but he looked like he didn’t really want to be bothered. I left him alone. He walked by me no more than five feet away. My second celebrity encounter; the first was in December. I swear Sting is following me. I’m being stalked by a rock star! Cool.
Lunch was at the train station McDonald’s. I haven’t had the Micky D’s since I got here, so I was eager to give it a shot. Plus, I was so hungry I would have eaten fresh road-kill, or track-kill, if someone offered it to me. I’d have even paid.
After lunch we started planning out what we wanted to see and where we wanted to go. There were two items on the must list and everything else was pretty flexible. The plan was to start out and head north to the Galleria dell’Accademia to see “David” and work our way south. It was just a plan, but it was a plan that was going to take a lot of walking. We stepped out of the train station, and I looked over at the bus stop and saw the CitySightseeing tour bus. I’ve never been on one of them, but Lisa did it in London and she loved it. That was a pretty good recommendation to me, so I mentioned that I’d heard they were a great way to see the city and that we should check out their itinerary. Everything we wanted to see and more was on there, so we handed over our 20 euros and climbed on board.
The bus has two lines: A and B. We were limited both in the time we had available to spend in Florence (roughly 8 hours) and the closing time of the bus tour. There was apparently some sort of fireworks show happening that night in Florence and the bus line was going to do the last run at 7:00 rather than stay open until midnight. Incidentally, there was also a fireworks show in Milan that night, although it appears that I’m the only one in my group that realizes it, including the native. I hope I wasn’t imagining those sounds. Going to a mental hospital for a couple of weeks sounds restful, but I really don’t want to actually be a nut. Since we were limited, we chose the A line which stayed mostly in the heart of the city, which was fine with us since that’s where everything we wanted to see was anyway.
The first time we got off the bus was near the Arno River. We’d spotted the river going through and wanted a closer look, so we hopped off the bus and walked a block to the river. I got a few good pictures of the river and Ponte Vecchio. We crossed the bridge and walked down along the banks to Ponte Vecchio. Ponte Vecchio is, I think, a pretty famous bridge in Florence. Most of the city’s best goldsmith’s have their shops there, and really it doesn’t look anything like a bridge to me. It looks like a large set of townhomes built across the river. Very strange and very crowded. From there we walked over to the Galleria degli Uffizi and the plaza outside of it. There was some great sculpture there, including a replica of “David” and a very nice one of Neptune. I hate to say it, but although I was extremely impressed by “David” I liked the Neptune one far more. There was something regal about it that I didn’t feel from “David”.
I almost got run over by a horse and carriage while taking pictures of the statues and all the buildings. I was backing up to try to get this old church completely in frame when I heard the clip-clop of a horse’s feet. I turned around and there he was with his driver grinning maniacally. Ok, the driver wasn’t really doing that, and I think he was trying to turn the horse so it didn’t run me down, but it paints a more interesting picture that way.
From Uffizi we headed back to the bus stop. We passed another building with a series of sculptures inside and stopped to look. I’m not sure if the building or any of the sculptures were anything famous though. Once on the bus we headed to the Piazzale Michelangelo, which is supposed to have one of the best views of Florence. Unfortunately, thanks to the fireworks show we weren’t able to get the best views. Most of the Piazzale was closed off and the police guarding it didn’t look like the forgiving types.
Back on the bus, we went through some interesting neighborhoods and passed the museum where some of Galileo’s telescopes are housed. I’m kind of sorry we didn’t go in to that one. We rode the bus and listened to the tour all the way back to the train station. From there we had two plans, either of which would have worked for us. Plan A was to wait for the bus from the next line to show up and take that tour. Plan B was to wait for the bus we were just on to start moving again and go visit the Galleria Accademia to see David. We opted with Plan B, so we had some time to kill. We decided to up to this item that was on the map but not near any of the tour stops, the Fortezza Da Basso. On the walk over there we decided to cause an international incident by walking through a restricted area. Ok, I guess it wasn’t really all that bad, but we did get stopped by a security guard who told us that way we were going was not for tourists and for Congress only. Shame on us. Eventually we made it over to the Fortezza, but there was some sort of show going on so we couldn’t go in. I’m not all that disappointed actually. If I’m going to look at forts, I’d rather look at castles and such in Germany or Spain. A fort in Italy, even an old fort, doesn’t hold that much appeal for me.
We made our final stop of the day at the Galleria and stood in line to get in. All the guidebooks I’ve read say that the lines to get in are very long, so you should make a reservation. I’d prefer not to be locked in to certain times, so of course I never make reservations. That kept me from seeing the Last Supper, but it didn’t keep me from David. We waited maybe half an hour before getting inside, which I didn’t think was too bad. Then we had to go through a metal detector. Some deranged art critic tried to take a hammer to David in 1991, so now everyone has to pass through the metal detector and there’s a plexiglass barrier around the sculpture.
Florence is a great place for art lovers, but only if you’re really into Renaissance style paintings and sculpture. I’m not. I can appreciate the mastery of the art form by Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Donatello, etc. – what’s the other TMN Turtle’s name? – but the work itself doesn’t speak to me. I can only take looking at it for a couple of seconds. Put me in front of a Matisse or Picasso and I can hang for a while, but Renaissance art sort of falls on deaf eyes. That being said, David is a pretty awesome piece of work. It’s huge! Easily 20 feet tall not counting the base, which must add another 5 or 6 feet on to that. It’s also very detailed. You can see the veins and tendons in his hands and pick out individual muscles. A definite must see if you find yourself in Florence.
After abandoning the Galleria we walked about a quarter of a mile down the street to the Duomo. I really like this one. Its façade is very different from the cathedrals in London, York, and even Milan. This one looks like something more out a storybook. I wish we had gone in. The innards of a cathedral are usually just as interesting as the outside.
That was it for us. The city was about to close down for the fireworks, and we were both hot, nasty, and tired. I was also sporting a seriously impressive sunburn. We caught the bus back to the train station, changed our reservations to an earlier train, stopped by McD’s for dinner and headed back to Milan. I slept most of the way – well, dozed actually. I doubt anyone can actually sleep on a train unless they’ve got one of the sleeper cars.
Sunday was a day of rest, and by that I mean I didn’t leave the hotel until dinner at 7:45. I actually only left my room once and that was for the five minutes it took for me to go up the executive lounge and snag a couple of bottles of water and a Pepsi to go along with my lunch. I should have gotten out and done a little souvenir shopping, but I didn’t. Oh, well. I’ll find something sometime before I leave.
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