Florence

The Main Features of Florence

The Ponte Vecchio

The Ponte Veccio is the most well-known and famous bridge in Florence and was originally built in the year 1345 by the artist Neri di Fioravante.  The bridge has three arches and shops that line the sides of the bridge, back in the 14^th century there were gold smiths living and selling gold in the houses.  Today the still are doing that!  In WWII the bridge was going to be destroyed by Hitler but he had a love for art and thought the bridge looked beautiful so he decided not to bomb it.  All of the other bridges though on the canal were destroyed except for that one (they have now been rebuilt).   

The Medici Family

The Medici Family was considered to be one of the wealthiest families in Europe at the time and owned a lot of the land and the houses.  The Medici’s (to show there wealth) supported Michelangelo’s artwork and inspiration to be a famous artist so by the age of 14 he was let into the Medici’s house, to use there art canvases and practice whenever and whatever he wanted.  This is how he became one of the most well known artists in the world!  The Medici’s owned several huge mansions and regularly moved between them.  The main reason for the Medici’s wealth is because of the banks that they owned.  They owned every bank in Florence at the time and they continued to be the wealthiest family in Europe for 200 to 300 years!

The Duomo

The Duomo is the biggest square in the whole of Florence and also holds the biggest cathedral, the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore.  Various artists completed the cathedral over a period of centuries but no record of the original artist has ever been found.  The huge dome inside the cathedral is a fresco and was painted by an artist called Vasari who was summoned by Cosimo the 1^st Medici.  It took 2 years to paint the dome and in the end it looked beautiful.  We cycled around the Duomo - pretty cool and very crowded, thank goodness for bells on the bike!

Michelangelo

Michelangelo was a famous artist that painted pictures of the Italian Renaissance and got the nickname the “Renaissance Man”.  He was born in March 1479 and died in February 1564 and was an only child born in Caprese, Tuscany and moved very early to Florence after an unexpected death of his mother.  He sculpted and painted many pieces of art all based around the church and the bible.  He regularly wanted attention from some of the well-known artists in Florence and they were surprised by how good he could paint and sculpt.  He moved on in later life to be the man he is today painting and sculpting many things like David’s Statue, The Sistine Chapel Ceiling (in Rome) and many more!

Uffizi Gallery

The Uffizi Gallery holds some of the most famous paintings of it’s time some of them being the “13^th and 14^th Century Painting”, which was a type of Tuscan Art and was made to look like a fresco.  The Gallery also holds the “15^th Century Painting”, which was mainly based around the Renaissance of Florence in the 1400’s and was painted by Lorenzo Ghiberti.  It holds much more pieces of famous art from its time and is still being used to store art today.    We didn't make it into the gallery, for one the line was so long (about a 2 hour wait), and, secondly, I happened to eat an gelato (ice cream) with some nuts in it and was sick for the afternoon!

A Bike Ride Around Florence

The second day we were in Florence we did a bike tour around the main areas and tourist attractions and we saw everything that I listed above.  The bike tour was amazing and fun and we were lucky enough to have a blue sky (it’s always blue though) and a mildly hot temperature.  The alley ways were  tricky to ride through, the surface bumpy with cobble stones and had to dodge people all the time - dodgems on a bike!

A Tour of Tuscany

Sienna

Sienna is a beautiful city that has many wonderful features and events that occur every year.  One of the lovely sights in Sienna is the Cathedral.  It was originally built in 1215 and finished construction in 1263 and was built to compete with the Cathedral in Florence.

Horse race

In Sienna a huge gathering of people going up to about 500,000 all there to watch a bare back horse race.  In Sienna there are 13 different districts each of them represented by an animal (e.g. eagle, rhino, elephant etc.) 10 are randomly selected to race in the annual race, which takes place on the 14^th of July and the 22^nd of August.  The race takes place in the town square and the ground is covered with sand so the horses run easily.  Most times the horses fall over and people can get hurt really badly.   This years race had a pile up just after the start taking out 6 horses leaving only 4 to race it out.

The Cathedral in Sienna

The Cathedral in Florence

Our Train Tickets on the Cinque Terre

The Cinque Terre View

Walking!

The Square where the Horse Race is

Photos of the Horse Race

The Leaning Tower of Pisa Leaning on ME!

The Ponte Vecchio

The Highest Tower in San Gimignano

San Gimignano

Going for a swim on the Cinque Terre

Swimming on the Cinque Terre

The Uffizi Gallery

Yummy Gelato!

San Gimignano

San Gimignano is a lovely old town that has a wall running around the outside of it.  The town is famous for it’s towers that most have been destroyed or fallen down now.  A family would build a tower to show how wealthy they were and in the small town it self there were just over 50 towers! We climbed one of the towers - major number of steps but worth it when we got to the top as we could see right over the town and countryside.

Pisa

Our final stop on the tour was the famous town of Pisa with the Leaning Tower of Pisa in it.  We were lucky enough to be able to go to the top of Pisa, which was amazing and scary at the same time.  It felt like you were walking sideways at times as it is REALLY leaning.  The Leaning Tower of Pisa is now completely safe since it was counter-balanced in the 1930’s, and recently experienced a major cleanup and stabilization finishing only a few years ago, before then it was unsafe as it was sinking.   Adding 3 more levels to the top of it that moved the other way balanced the tower.  The tower was built in the 14^th century and was built perfectly straight but they soon realized that it was slowly leaning to one side because of the foundations it was built on.  Many of the buildings around are also a bit crooked as well.

The Cinque Terre Walk

The last full day we were in the Florence area we did a 10 km hike through a region and national park called the Cinque Terre which is on the coast.  The Cinque Terre is made up of 5 different towns all of which are very beautiful.  We started our journey on a 2-hour bus journey to the staring point and enjoyed a lovely walk.  We then stopped for lunch and after started our hike though the beautiful mountains.  The hike was about 1 and half hours long and by the end I was exhausted (since it was mostly uphill).  We went for a swim and then  took a train to the  our final town where we took a boat back to the bus.