Where in the world is Gwannel Sandiego?: Florence

Showing posts with label Florence. Show all posts

Sunday, October 08, 2017

Florentine fancies

On our second day in Florence, we continued the theme of visiting slightly less-known attractions with a trip to the Palazzo Vecchio. In fact, the Palazzo Vecchio is so obscure (to me, at least), that I now realise I named all my photos from the visit as being taken at the Pitti Palace, which I visited on my 2009 trip. I'm probably just underinformed, but I don't remember hearing about the Palazzo Vecchio at all before planning this trip, which is crazy, because plop it down almost anywhere else in the world and it would be a star attraction.

It's not exactly flying under the radar location-wise either. It's right there next to the Uffizi, with the (replica) statue of David plonked in front of it. I suppose it just gets overshadowed by its more famous neighbours, including the bridge with which it shares its name.

Even if you don't go inside, while you're in the neighbourhood you should peep into the beautiful entrance courtyard for free.

We got up bright and early to be there when it opened and avoid ticket queues. We got the "everything" ticket, including climbing the tower and visiting the archaeological dig below the palace. Unless you're a huge fan of old rocks, you can skip the archaeological part. It wasn't very visually impressive and although they called it a "guided tour", turns out the "guide" was an app that they expected you to download in an Italian basement.

Next, continuing our reverse visit strategy to beat the crowds, it was up the tower for a lovely view of Florence. Make sure you get some pics from the battlements further down, because at the top you unfortunately can't see all that much due to walls and guardrails. Made me miss my Bologna tower!

You get a wonderful view of the Duomo from up there

View of Santa Croce

That box ticked off, we made our way top-down through the palace. It was built in the late 13th/early 14th century and extensively modelled for the Medicis by Vasari, to reflect a new use as official residence and seat of government (as opposed to the actual home of the Medicis). The palace boasts a massive great hall, the Salone dei Cinquecento, various state rooms, chapels, and a series of rooms each dedicated to a different member of the Medici family. Most of the decorating budget seems to have gone on the ceilings. Almost every room has a different and very elaborate ceiling - I left with a crick in my neck!

"Florentia"

Ghirlandaio annunciation

Chapel decorated by Bronzino

View of the great hall

Ceiling in the great hall

In the hall of maps

I thought the patriotic lion might be English, but I think he turned out to be Florentine somehow

Beautiful open-air terrace. Imagine having your morning coffee here!

We wandered over to the other side of the Arno for lunch and gelato, and then the afternoon was spent at the Bargello. This was not originally on my list of things to see, but we walked past and decided it looked pretty cool from the glimpses you could get from outside, and pretty empty. I'm not such a huge fan of sculpture, to be honest, but it was in a nice building and worth a look. Plus there was also some decorative arts - ivory carvings, ceramics, goldsmithery etc., which were more to my taste.

Jules models for his armour

This was cool - there was long a story that Giotto depicted Dante in a fresco at the Bargello. It was turned into a prison and the walls whitewashed and the fresco lost, only rediscovered in the 19th century. It seems these days there is some debate over whether it is an actual Giotto fresco or just by his workshop. But if it is Dante (in red, above the kneeling man in the foreground), it's the oldest known portrait of him.

Exquisite ivory carvings showing knights attacking the castle of Love. I think Jules dreads seeing ivories, because I never miss the opportunity to have a moan about how the stupid royals want to destroy them all

Jason and the Golden Fleece

Michelangelo's Bacchus

#fakedoors

Our final cultural activity in Florence was a trip to the opera. This was actually my birthday present, only about 10 months late. We took a taxi since the opera's in a new building quite a long way from the centre of town. We left plenty of time since they don't admit anyone after the doors close, and it's lucky we did, since only a few minutes into our journey our cabbie suddenly pulled to the side of the road... flat tire. As we waited for another taxi to turn up, I felt as though we were in the Amazing Race or something (is it me, or do they have an unusual amount of car trouble?), but even allowing for crawling rush hour traffic we managed to turn up on time. The opera was Puccini's La Bohême which, to be honest, wasn't my favourite thing ever. I'm no opera buff, but I think I figured out I prefer the big, bombastic style operas (I've seen Aida, The Marriage of Figaro and Rigoletto in the past, and enjoyed them). This was a little too quotidien for me (*spoilers* the deathbed scene aside) and the plot didn't really seem to hang together - there's a random group of children who turn up to sing a song and then disappear again, and someone does a whole aria about his coat. But, you know, still good to get a bit of extra Italian culture.

All fancy for the opera

Friday, October 06, 2017

Florence: Santa Maria Novella la bella

One of the big advantages of our motorhome travel in New Zealand was the flexibility to change plans and pick and choose where we'd be on any given night and how long we'd stay there. Since we were driving, we kind of planned out our Italy honeymoon along the same lines. We made an itinerary and booked hotels for every stop (unlike NZ, where we didn't book anywhere in advance), but we were careful to book places that could be cancelled if we changed our minds. In fact, so far we've stuck to the plan. Turns out it's a bit more complicated to change things around with hotels and apartments than when you're a travelling snail in your shell. The upshot of this, though, is that we didn't make any advance bookings for things like museums or tours, just in case we weren't where we thought we'd be on the day in question. Mostly, this hasn't been an issue. The season is over now and places are definitely getting quieter. There was one spot, however, where it is big enough and tourist-filled enough to make a difference, and that is Florence.

There are SO many tourists in Florence. I don't remember it being quite so bad the last time I was there in 2009, at around the same time of year, although I do remember there were long lines at the Uffizi even then. Since we didn't have advance tickets for these sorts of places, and could be bothered neither to stand in line for them nor to monkey around with Italian websites, we decided to skip some of Florence's big hitters and go instead for some slightly lesser-known attractions.

First, though, we had to arrive - by car. This wasn't actually quite as traumatic as I was expecting (easy for me to say, I wasn't driving), although we did end up accidentally driving through a pedestrian-only zone in the Santa Croce square. Not that you could really tell, since all those million tourists just walk in the road whether it's a pedestrian area or not. We'll see if there's a fine waiting when we get back to Brussels though... After a pause while Jules waited in the car and I did some on-foot reconnaissance to discover whether it was actually possible to get to the parking garage by car (you'd think so, or it would sort of defeat the purpose), we were happy to abandon the car for a couple of days and explore the rest of Florence via Shank's ponies.

While we were waiting for our apartment to be ready, we picked up some panini and then checked out the Duomo.

Outside the duomo

The inside of the famous Duomo domo

The inside is not so spectacular

Jules and my sandwich, I think. In one of the famous hole-in-the-wall places on Via dei Neri

Then it was on to our main attraction for the afternoon, the church of Santa Maria Novella. I went back in 2009, but since then they have actually opened up the cloisters and associated monastical structures, which adds a ton more to see, including the famous Uccello frescoes. I'm not sure how long this part has been accessible, but if you visited a while ago, it's well worth going again to see the rest of the complex.

Massaccio's Trinity, said to have induced terror in viewers when it was first revealed, due to its trompe l'oeil perspective

Beautiful Ghirlandaio frescoes behind the altar

Harmonious ceiling vaults in the cloister cemetery

In the cloisters

Ucello's flood. I had to study this via a black and white photocopy at school, you can imagine how uninspiring that was. In real life, the dramatic perspective and foreshortening is much more effective. It was originally in an arch in the cloisters, hence the shape, but has been moved inside for preservation

The Spanish Chapel, located off the cloister

Ceiling and wall of the Spanish Chapel

I can totally picture this as an ad for some hipster perfume or something

Fresco in the Spanish Chapel

Jules in the Great Cloister

It's not quite the Uffizi, but the amount and quality of artworks in situ in churches and cathedrals across Italy is still mind-blowing, and SMN is a particularly good spot to while away an afternoon. And we didn't have to queue!

We recovered our energy at Florence's Central Market, a destination which was new to me. It wasn't, to be honest, the *most* amazing food Italy has to offer, but you've got to hand it to them for making a really slickly-branded, tourist-friendly place to people-watch and sample some food and wine. They have common branding and staff (bussing tables) that make it, if perhaps a little antiseptic, at least a very inviting and easy place to spend some time. I think my favourite market experience is still the place we went to in Madrid, which was more authentically markety, but this was fun too for an early dinner grazing session.