Text and photos by guest blogger Bill Auge. Find Part 1: Venezia HERE 

Ponte Vecchio con i passanti (with the passers by)

The Italo train left la Stazione di Venezia Santa Lucia and glided through the flat agricultural plain of Veneto, through the Appennino Mountains toward Firenze, reaching the impressive speed of 300 km an hour. We disembarked at la Stazione di Santa Maria Novella and headed with our wheeled luggage through the cobble stone streets of Firenze. Luckily we try to pack light, for it is not easy navigating the narrow, uneven sidewalks of this city. Our residence for the next several days was to be a lovely small hotel on a non-descript street.

Firenze is a very walk-able city with most of the historic sites located in a compact area, so money can be saved by finding a hotel room outside the historic centre where prices are lower and there is less congestion. It’s hard to imagine any city with a greater concentration of art than Firenze, the cradle of the Italian Renaissance. You witness this artistic and scientific explosion of creativity as you walk the streets and observe the symmetrical proportions of its architecture and public statuary.

Looking out over the city with a classical Tuscan landscape fading into the distance.

Then there are the plethora of museums housing the works of the great masters. Il Bargello, Palazzo Pitti, il Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, la Galleria dell’Accademia, and the greatest of all, la Galleria degli Uffizi.  My advice is try and buy your admission tickets ahead of time on the internet or arrive very early at the museums to avoid long queues. This is especially true for la Galleria dell’Accademia and gli Uffizi. If you want a break from the museums take a walk through the San Lorenzo street market which contains all the usual trinkets for tourist plus a lot of leather goods. It stretches several blocks from the church of San Lorenzo to il Mercato Centrale, an indoor food market and fun place to look around. This is also a great place for picking up an inexpensive lunch.

It takes more than a few days to see the sights of Firenze, so you have to prioritise what is important to you. One of the items on my list was climbing to the top of la cupola di Santa Maria in Fiore, brilliantly designed by Filippo Brunelleschi.

Drawing of la Cupola di Santa Maria in Fiore showing the double shelled design

Built between 1434 and 1455, it was the first cupola to be erected in nearly 1,000 years and Brunelleschi ingeniously solved the technical problems of its construction by creating a double shelled dome. There are 643 steps that take you to the top and most of the steps spiral up between the two shells of the dome. The climb will get your heart pumping and so will the view from la Lanterna which crowns la cupola. After soaking it all in, I returned to the streets where my wife was waiting and we headed off to find a well deserved pranzo.  

to be continued …..