Florence
Our hotel was the Hotel Toscana located in the historical centre of Florence, on the 1st and 2nd floor of an ancient building between square of Santa Maria Novella and the elegant "via de'Tornabuoni", about 400 meters from the main railway station within a short walking distance from the "Duomo", Piazza Signoria, and the Uffizi Gallery. Our room came with a bathroom and in the morning we were served a generous buffet breakfast.
http://maps.yourgmap.com/v/e_is_Firenze.html
Our first day we went and looked at the Duomo which is a truly impressive sight. I think it was the largest structure I have seen to this point. We then wandered up to the Church of San Lorenzo, the Medici's Parish Church which also includes many tombs of the family. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_di_San_Lorenzo_di_Firenze
Then it was off towards the Uffizi and the Loggia that houses Bev's favourite sculpture "The Rape of the Sabine Women". Lastly, we wandered down to the Ponte Vecchio and had a look at the Arno. Mark Twain characterized the Arno as "... a plausible river if they would pump some water into it." This slow moving green ditch was used in ages past to swallow countless suicides, murder victims, and executed felons.
The Eleonora that Bev mentioned in her post was Eleonora of Toledo who married Cosimo I de' Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany and who purchased the Palazzo Pitti in 1549 for the Medici family. Many of her clothes still survive and are exhibited in museums around the world, including the Palazzo Pitti which we were visiting. In the Costume Gallery were displayed the funeral garments of Cosimo, Eleonora and her son Don Garzia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Eleonora_di_Toledo
After the first day Bev was footsore from sprinting to catch our connections between flights in Milan, so she did some chores while I ran off to the Archaelogical Musuem in Florence for the morning. I eventually found it after getting lost and walking right by the entrance. I was floored by the size of their Egyptian collection, the largest I have seen in my life with tons of interesting material from the every day life of ancient Egypt, not just rich grave goods plus there were a few mummies (more dead people bits). I went there specifically for their Etruscan collection because it is supposed to be pretty good. I got to see the one large bronze 'The Chimera' but the other large ones were out for restoration. Still, I was very impressed and there is supposed to be an even better collection in Rome. I can't wait.
On my way back, I was flagged down by someone sitting on a ledge of a building at a busy street corner. It was Bev waiting for a traffic accident. She was disappointed. It appears that despite the seeming chaos on the roads, things flow pretty well, the only near miss of the day was when Bev was walking up a very narrow sidewalk and her sling was clipped by the mirror of a passing car (I was more scared by the buses when they went past). We went inside the Duomo (this is where Lorenzo di Medici was almost assassinated by the Pazzi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pazzi) and down to a dig site underneath the church where the crypts are and got to see several layers (4, I think) of churches that existed previously on the site.
Then we went to Santa Croce Church that contains the burial monuments of many luminaries of Florence (including Dante [actually buried in Ravenna], Galileo (well most of him except for a middle finger), Niccolò Machiavelli, Michelangelo, and Enrico Fermi.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_di_Santa_Croce_di_Firenze
Our last day in Florence we decided to get out of the city centre. Since we didn't want a stressful day we opted to take public transit into the suburbs of Florence. About 8 km northeast of the city is the town of Fiesole. Not only does it give a great view looking down into Florence on the bus trip up to the town, but it also has a fairly good Romanized Etruscan site. There is a 2,000 seat Roman Theatre and a baths complex and an Etruscan temple dedicated to Minerva. The museum there contains artifacts recovered from the site. After Lunch in Piazza Mino, the central square of Fiesole we headed off to our next stop.
In the Northern outskirts of the city lie a clutch of Medici villas (where they would go to get out of town). These country houses were much more scaled down in tone from the ostentatious palaces in town, but still they clearly belonged to wealthy individuals.
We got off at the wrong stop, so it was necessary to hike through suburbs towards what we hoped were the villas. This gave us a chance to experience some of the "real" Italy. Eventually, we arrived at Villa Medicea La Petraia. Entrance was Free but we had to wait to get shown around the inside of the Villa, so we explored the gardens for a bit. Again we got a great view looking down at the centre of Florence and found the garden pleasantly free of Tourists with only a few Florentines enjoying the day. There was quite a group waiting to get into the villa, so they split us up between two groups. Bev and I slipped in with an Italian group of older ladies (we wonder if what we saw was different from the other group).
The Villa was quite lovely and Bev particularly like the frescoes, completed by Volterrano in 1648 on the walls of the inner courtyard, depicting the splendour of the Medici family. The courtyard was covered with an iron structure when the villa passed to the Savoy family, who then transformed it into a summer residence, introducing new furniture, including imperial pieces from other royal residences.
The tour included a visit to the lounge which the Savoy family equipped with parlour games.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Savoy
One of the games was a very early version of Pinball called Bagatelle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagatelle
Also interesting was the statue of Hercules and Antaeus by Ammannati.
Leaving Florence the next day we expected to get a good glimpse of that famous Tuscan country side unfortunately it was foggy and didn't clear much until our descent into Naples.
Sorry about the lack of photographs, we don't tend to take shots that other people seem to take on vacation and we don't have a high speed connection in our hotel so we can't get pictures up there in a timely fashion. We make a slideshow of our best ones when we get back.
http://maps.yourgmap.com/v/e_is_Firenze.html
Our first day we went and looked at the Duomo which is a truly impressive sight. I think it was the largest structure I have seen to this point. We then wandered up to the Church of San Lorenzo, the Medici's Parish Church which also includes many tombs of the family. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_di_San_Lorenzo_di_Firenze
Then it was off towards the Uffizi and the Loggia that houses Bev's favourite sculpture "The Rape of the Sabine Women". Lastly, we wandered down to the Ponte Vecchio and had a look at the Arno. Mark Twain characterized the Arno as "... a plausible river if they would pump some water into it." This slow moving green ditch was used in ages past to swallow countless suicides, murder victims, and executed felons.The Eleonora that Bev mentioned in her post was Eleonora of Toledo who married Cosimo I de' Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany and who purchased the Palazzo Pitti in 1549 for the Medici family. Many of her clothes still survive and are exhibited in museums around the world, including the Palazzo Pitti which we were visiting. In the Costume Gallery were displayed the funeral garments of Cosimo, Eleonora and her son Don Garzia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Eleonora_di_Toledo
After the first day Bev was footsore from sprinting to catch our connections between flights in Milan, so she did some chores while I ran off to the Archaelogical Musuem in Florence for the morning. I eventually found it after getting lost and walking right by the entrance. I was floored by the size of their Egyptian collection, the largest I have seen in my life with tons of interesting material from the every day life of ancient Egypt, not just rich grave goods plus there were a few mummies (more dead people bits). I went there specifically for their Etruscan collection because it is supposed to be pretty good. I got to see the one large bronze 'The Chimera' but the other large ones were out for restoration. Still, I was very impressed and there is supposed to be an even better collection in Rome. I can't wait.
On my way back, I was flagged down by someone sitting on a ledge of a building at a busy street corner. It was Bev waiting for a traffic accident. She was disappointed. It appears that despite the seeming chaos on the roads, things flow pretty well, the only near miss of the day was when Bev was walking up a very narrow sidewalk and her sling was clipped by the mirror of a passing car (I was more scared by the buses when they went past). We went inside the Duomo (this is where Lorenzo di Medici was almost assassinated by the Pazzi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pazzi) and down to a dig site underneath the church where the crypts are and got to see several layers (4, I think) of churches that existed previously on the site.Then we went to Santa Croce Church that contains the burial monuments of many luminaries of Florence (including Dante [actually buried in Ravenna], Galileo (well most of him except for a middle finger), Niccolò Machiavelli, Michelangelo, and Enrico Fermi.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_di_Santa_Croce_di_Firenze
Our last day in Florence we decided to get out of the city centre. Since we didn't want a stressful day we opted to take public transit into the suburbs of Florence. About 8 km northeast of the city is the town of Fiesole. Not only does it give a great view looking down into Florence on the bus trip up to the town, but it also has a fairly good Romanized Etruscan site. There is a 2,000 seat Roman Theatre and a baths complex and an Etruscan temple dedicated to Minerva. The museum there contains artifacts recovered from the site. After Lunch in Piazza Mino, the central square of Fiesole we headed off to our next stop.
In the Northern outskirts of the city lie a clutch of Medici villas (where they would go to get out of town). These country houses were much more scaled down in tone from the ostentatious palaces in town, but still they clearly belonged to wealthy individuals.
We got off at the wrong stop, so it was necessary to hike through suburbs towards what we hoped were the villas. This gave us a chance to experience some of the "real" Italy. Eventually, we arrived at Villa Medicea La Petraia. Entrance was Free but we had to wait to get shown around the inside of the Villa, so we explored the gardens for a bit. Again we got a great view looking down at the centre of Florence and found the garden pleasantly free of Tourists with only a few Florentines enjoying the day. There was quite a group waiting to get into the villa, so they split us up between two groups. Bev and I slipped in with an Italian group of older ladies (we wonder if what we saw was different from the other group).
The Villa was quite lovely and Bev particularly like the frescoes, completed by Volterrano in 1648 on the walls of the inner courtyard, depicting the splendour of the Medici family. The courtyard was covered with an iron structure when the villa passed to the Savoy family, who then transformed it into a summer residence, introducing new furniture, including imperial pieces from other royal residences.
The tour included a visit to the lounge which the Savoy family equipped with parlour games.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Savoy
One of the games was a very early version of Pinball called Bagatelle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagatelle
Also interesting was the statue of Hercules and Antaeus by Ammannati.
Leaving Florence the next day we expected to get a good glimpse of that famous Tuscan country side unfortunately it was foggy and didn't clear much until our descent into Naples.
Sorry about the lack of photographs, we don't tend to take shots that other people seem to take on vacation and we don't have a high speed connection in our hotel so we can't get pictures up there in a timely fashion. We make a slideshow of our best ones when we get back.
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