The Renaissance of Firenze

After having walked around the city of Florence in the light of day, it is easy to see how this city was the heart of the Renaissance period. It has a completely different feel to it than Rome. In Rome everything seems larger than life with more of a statement of size and structure. In Florence, the buildings, architecture and sculptures seem to be on a smaller scale and there seems to be an attention to detail that is less prevalent in Rome. The city itself is also much smaller than Rome. You can walk the heart of it in easily a couple of hours, while still having time to stop and appreciate the piazza's with their many sculptures. Both Vicky and I really enjoyed the "feel" of this place.

We started off our morning with a couple of fresh cappuccino's and pastries, at a local hangout not far from our hotel. After that traditional italian breakfast, we made our way down the street loaded with street vendors selling everything from little keychains, to leather purses and jackets. We were approached by a leather jacket vendor, and being that I was in the market for a leather jacket, we agreed to have a look at his store. If you need any kind of leather good, Italy is definitely a good place to go. Florence, had both the selection, and quality I was looking for in a leather jacket. I think this is simply due to the number of tourists that go the the area of Tuscany. I managed to find a beautiful brown leather jacket that was amazingly affordable. With the jacket purchased, we continued on to Piazza Del Duomo - which is the religious center of the city - home to the Baptistry, Bell Tower and the Duomo. It would have been nice to go into each of these separately, but the sheer number of tourists milling about and standing in lines already, made us re-think this idea. We simply did not have the time to do this and see the rest of the city so, we continued on after snapping no less than about 30 photographs. Walking towards the river Arno, we passed by the Bargello Palace - completed around the 14th century and was the home of a prison with torture and execution chambers in the 16th century when the Bargello(Captain of Justice) established himself there. The building today is a museum, the home of many Tuscan Renaissance sculptures. We continued on to the Piazza della Signoria - the civic center of Florence and further on to the Palazzo degli Uffizi(public offices) - which overlooks the river Arno. We strolled along the river for about a block and then took a bridge across to the other side. We were told we must climb the hill to get a good view of the city. In order to do this we had to enter the Pitti Palace. The palace is full of different areas - each of which cost about 6 or more Euro to enter. These too would have been nice to visit, but would have required more time than we had in Florence, so we continued on and entered the Boboli Gardens behind the palace since it allowed us to still be outside. The gardens are beautiful and home to many sculptures, and some beautiful views of the city. When we were nearing the completion of the tour of the gardens, we got a call from Renato saying that he'd be swinging back through Florence sooner than expected - around 4pm. Since we hadn't seen enough of the city yet, and the fact we were enjoying it, we decided we wanted to stay in Florence for at least another day, and that he could come into Florence again, or continue on to Rome. He and Karri decided to head back to Rome, and we decided to take the train back the next day as it was only a 1.5hr journey for about 30 Euro. This gave us another day to explore the city and not be too rushed. After making that decision we needed to get back to the hotel we checked out of and see if we could reserve another night. Turns out this wasn't a big deal, and thus here we are...We're here for one more day. We'll head off tonight for a nice dinner.