I was actually going to skip Florence when I originally made plans for this trip, as Florence was all about the Renaissance, the late 15th and early 16th centuries of da Vinci and Micheleangelo and Raphael; I was looking for the 14th century, painters like Giotto and Donatello and Ghiberti. Florence was a hundred years ahead of where I thought I wanted to be.
But I relented, as felt I needed to educate myself on the period, and so many people said I had to see the city. Thank God I did!
Landed old school, walking off the plane into a bus. Reminded me of travelling to Australia as a kid and walking off of the 747 in Tonga to tropical heat and smiles. I smiled in the memory, smiled to have left Paris two hours earlier and landed in sunny Florence – yes!
What a wonder. Forget the tourists – which actually weren’t too bad early September. Art was everywhere!
Art and architecture (and leather!).
The sense that this city was at the centre of the Renaissance, of a humanist flowering of creativity unequalled since. The energy, while old, was still very present. I had felt it in Milan four years earlier on a previous research trip, but here it was stronger.
The Uffizi Gallery and piazza were impressive…
But inside was even more so…Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo…
Then of course the amazing Florence Cathedral…with the dome created miraculously, a dome within a dome, by Filippo Brunelleschi. It was actually more impressive outside than in…
But still worth the wait…
The next morning we stood in line for 15 minutes for Michelangelo’s David…and what a treat that was. Perfection in marble. We arrived early (I’d bought tickets online) and there were only five other people in the space. What an unforgettable experience!
It’s hard to convey how beautiful the statue is, as it is alive, David’s glare at Goliath/the Medici’s (the statue was originally placed outside of the Uffizi gallery (where a copy still stands)…
…where the seat of government lay, and David’s glare was directed at the source of untrammelled power, the statues placed by the Medici…a scene still relevant to today’s politics, and a statue truly for the ages.
Almost as interesting were Michelangelo’s unfinished statues that stood before David, the forms half released…
Then of course there were the streets…which felt like a canvas being painted around every corner.
This hotel reminded me of what lay ahead…then the Ponte de Vechio…
…and of course researching Vernaccia wine (and the amazing food)…
The leather…well, that’s another story.
Needless to say, it was an education. The next morning we checked out, picked up the rental car and were off to San Gimignano in search of Vernaccia…