Pisa and Florence

First stop in Tuscany was the obligaory Leaning Tower of Pisa. We made a flying visit on the way to Florence and just spent the afternoon having a look around.

Here she is. It really is as leany as it looks. Its been shored up with tension rods at the base, otherwise I imagine it would have come down by now.

The buildings around the tower.

We jumped back in the car and headed on to Florence, arriving in the late arvo.

Florence is packed full of stuff to see, the whole city is like a museum, paintings on every spare square centimeter of wall and statues in every piazza. Florence was the center of the Italian renaissance aound the 15th century, artist flocked to Florence to enjoy the patronage of rich Italians families, the most well known being the Medicis, who competed with each other for the biggest and best of everything. The result was a thriving artistic community that included all 4 ninja turtles. Every day was packed from breakfast until late arvo with sightseeing.

The Ponte Vecchio, or old bridge, was our first stop. It is basically just that, an old bridge. Back in the day there used to be butcher shops all up and down the bridge and they would throw the old meat over the edge into the river. It stank of course, and they were booted out and replaced by jewellery shops which still inhabit the bridge - much nicer.

Ponte Vecchio

The Duomo of Santa Maria del Fiore is the centerpiece of the city and it was the next major sight we visited. The facade is pretty much all marble and amazingly intricate.

Facade of Santa Maria del Fiore

We climbed up the inside of the cathedrale to the 'duomo' and then up over the dome to the very top of the cathedrale. It was a hard climb, hundreds of steps, stinking hot, very claustrophobic and very cramped, but really worth it to see the frescoes close up, and to see the views over Florence.

Angie actually inside the duomo, it is made up of 2 concentric semi circles or 2 'layers' of dome, and the stair to ascend runs between the two. Under Ange's feet is the concrete of the dome, and then about a 50m drop to the cathedrale floor.

Here is the underside of the duomo, so we were walking on the other side of those paintings on the ceiling and ended up right at the top where the circle of light is.

Half way up you get a better look at the frescoes on the ceiling.

Further up again you can walk around the perimeter of the base of the dome and really see all the frescoes. I loved the artwork in here and took heaps of photos. Really dramatic scenes of heaven and hell, angels and demons and all that stuff, a million tatoos in waiting.

People have been writing all over the insides of the narrow passages for hundreds of years.

The view when we finally got to the top.

View of Giotto's campanile from the top of the duomo.

Back on the ground outside the cathedrale.

The Baptistry of St John is directly opposite the cathedrale and was our next stop. It is famous for its 3 sets of massive decorative doors, each designed by different artists or architects.

The Baptistry is the building you can see in the foreground with the Santa Maria del Fiore in the background with its adjacent bell tower.

These are the most famous set of doors to the baptistry. There was a competition for the comission and Lorenzo Ghiberti was the winner. Michaelangelo was so taken with Ghiberti's design that he dubbed them 'the gates of paradise'.

Palazzo de Medici was the mansion of the ruling family of Florence and housed their personal collection.


Pallazo de Medici

Even the ceilings of every room are plastered with art and ornate, guilded decoration.

We all found this statue pretty amusing, if a little disturbing.

The philosophy was definitely more, more, more. Every square inch is taken up with something.

Weird creature that Em and Ange liked in the borders of a fresco.

A covered balcony overlooking Florence within the Palazzo.

Ornate ceiling in the background

My favourite room

Florence was awesome. It was also probably the most demanding place we had visited at this point in terms of the amount of stuff to see. Even though there is more to see there, we saw pretty much everything we could in four days as well as having some time to browse the markets full of leather goods, check out the clothes, which were really cool, eat gelato and have a few drinks.

Next stop, Sorrento