Florence

Florence, capital of Italy’s Tuscany region and birthplace of the Renaissance, is home to masterpieces of art and architecture. One of its most iconic sites is the Florence Cathedral, with its terra-cotta-tiled dome, when you get up close it is absolutely huge.

Pontevecchio Relais Room

We trained from Orvieto to Florence, what a magnificent part of Italy, the countryside really is beautiful. The walk from the train station to our accomodation was tedious dragging our bags over cobbled roads was very difficult, in retrospect we should have taken a Taxi, it was quite a hike and by the time we got there we were exhausted. We stayed for one night only in Florence at the Pontevecchio Relais, it was a very small room with a tiny bathroom but the thing that was impressive about this place was the location, right next to the Pontevecchio bridge, famous for the gold merchants that line it’s length. Which is, as our host said “the very centre of the very centre of old Florence.” The room had an interesting domed roof and the building had a tiny elevator that could only fit two people in it. It ran up the stare well, that’s why it was so small. Obviously originally there was no elevator at all and it was added much later to the building. We were very thankful for it as we were on the third floor and i couldn’t drag this bags any further. There wasn’t enough room in the lift for both of us and the luggage so we had to each go separately.

The amount of tourists in Florence is phenomenal, for me this spoils Florence as a destination. Right next door to our accomodation was The Museo Galileo (Galileo Museum) I would have loved to visit this while Di did what Di does (shop) but there was no way I was going to queue for two hours to get in, you should have seen the length of the lines to major attractions.

View from Piazzale Michelangelo

If you are into shopping you will love Florence especially if you are looking for leather goods or jewellery.

After a short rest we went for a walk to nearby Piazzale Michelangelo which was built in 1869 on a hill just south of the historic centre. Great views of the city from this vantage point. On the walk back to our accomodation , we stopped at one of the many cafe’s for dinner I had a Wild Boar Parpadelle and Di had Caramelised pears with cheese risotto. Very nice, we dragged ourselves home and fell into bed.