Given our delays riding the Vaporetto on Sunday trying to get from our suite to the train station to go to Church, we got up early and gave ourselves plenty of time to get to the train station to catch our train to Florence. We got all of our luggage to the dock along the Grand Canal (not an easy task when you are dragging luggage along cobblestone streets, up steps and across bridges [none of which are handicapped accessible]), we tried to "tap in" to the Vaporetto system but our cards were deemed invalid. They were supposed to valid for 48 hours from the first time we used them and theoretically should have had a few more good hours left, so we just got on the boat and no one checked.
We made it to the train station and watched the boards for the boarding call for our train. Trains will typically enter a station and remain for just a few minutes while people board and unboard, so you have to act quickly.
Becky waiting for the platform to be announced
The mad dash to the train. Some of the trains are LONG, so its a long walk to get all the way down to the end, if that's the car where your seating is.
Inside the train. It was very comfortable with soft and wide seats, small tables, and a guy who brought newspapers, "sweet or salty" (cookies or crackers), and juice or drinks. I booked the tickets far enough in advance that we were able to take advantage of the "mini" fares, which are a fraction of the regular cost and it was just a few dollars more for the first class cars. You find your assigned seat, and after the train is moving the conductor comes around and checks your ticket.
Corn grows, as we pass at 200 mph. Even in Italy.
Hay grows. The fields were such a beautiful golden color contrasted with the dark greens and it was hard to catch a good picture.
We arrived in the Florence train station about 11 a.m. (About a 2-hour train ride that stopped in Padua, Verona, Bologna and a few other cities.) Our hotel was the Grand Hotel Baglioni, right across from the train station. The hotel was built in the 1700s and was the former residence to the Carrega Bertolini Princes of Italy. It was converted into a hotel in 1903. There was an underground walkway that goes from the station directly to the front door of the hotel, but we never found the entrance point to the tunnel from the station, so we had to dodge traffic dragging our luggage on the surface streets. We walked across the street to the Visitor Information Bureau where we purchased our Firenze Cards, giving us access to all of the museums and the bus system in Florence.
Front of the Hotel facing toward the train station.
I booked our rooms directly from the hotel, and when I checked back to see if the price had dropped, I found a room package called "Americans in Florence", which included tickets to the Palazzo Strozzi Museum exhibitition of, oddly enough, American artists in Florence. The best part was the complimentary room upgrade (if available), and it was! Fortunately, our hotel room was ready when we arrived, so we were able to go directly to our room and cool down a bit (it was getting warm, and dragging luggage made us hot again).
I didn't have much cash with me, so this was the only time we took our own bags up to our room (which offended the bellhop who gave us a glare every time we saw him.) I always feel uncomfortable with a bellhop taking our luggage to our room....I'd much rather just do it myself because tipping makes me feel uncomfortable and is so arbitrary---did you give enough, too much?
Hallway of the hotel with the paneled wood ceilings. There were also sitting areas throughout the hotel with beautiful Florentine furniture, paintings and frescoes original to the hotel.
When we got to the room and opened up the french doors, this was the view we found:
We were awestruck! In Florence, in a ROOM WITH A VIEW! How perfect could this be???!? The thing that struck me as we opened up the doors and windows was the beautiful sound of Church bells ringing. We must have arrived in our room close to 12 o'clock noon. It was such a beautiful sound....it will always be one of my most fond memories of Florence.
The doors opened onto a small balcony with a few chairs.
After catching our breath, cooling down and filling our water bottles, we headed down the street towards Santa Maria del Fiore, the Duomo.
The dome of the church just peeking up over the rooftops
Arriving at the Baptistry and the Cathedral
Giotto's Bell Tower
The Baptistry. A competition was held in 1400 to design the doors of the Baptistery and the finished product, with its bronze relief panels depicting scenes from the Bible is widely considered to be the start of the Renaissance. (Interestingly, the baptistry is always located on the west end of the Cathedral and was intended to be the cleansing before one could enter the Cathedral sanctuary itself.)
The Florence Baptistry
The bronze doors, the Gates of Paradise
Bronze Doors
Close-up of the doors. These are actually replicas of the originals. The original panels are now housed in a museum on the opposite side of the Duomo.
One of the top things on my list of things to do in Florence was to climb Brunelleschi's dome. It is an architectural masterpiece of artistry and engineering. (Originally, the church sat open to the sky with no dome because no one could figure out how to build a dome to cover the immense area.)
The West facade of the Cathedral. The marble veneer was added a few hundred years after the cathedral was built. The colors are a beautiful white, teal and pink marble.
Close-up detail of the facade
One of my biggest concerns for this trip was getting caught in long lines waiting to get into sites, so I did a lot of prior research to find ways and times around this. For most museums, purchasing a museum pass allowed us front-of-the-line access. But at the Duomo, there was a 90-minute wait to climb up to the top of the dome. In my research online, I found an ArtFast pass that for $3 each + the entrance fee, we could go straight to the front. A bargain! Especially when the mid-day sun was getting higher and hotter! We got to the door and (after a 5 minute wait for the next group to be allowed to start the climb) we went straight in.
Becky volunteered to join me in climbing up the Cathedral dome. She was a real trooper! (And while se was a bit hesitant at first, I think she enjoyed it once we got up to the top.)
The stairs were fairly narrow, and for about half of the climb, there was one-way stair up and one coming down. But as we got up higher, there was only one set of stairs and it made it extremely difficult to get past people coming in the opposite direction. But along the way, there were small windows that provided a bit of ventilation and a peek out to the City.
About half-way up, there was a VERY narrow catwalk sort of passage around the bottom of the dome. It was enclosed with plexiglass and provided some cool views down to the floor of the cathedral. (The scale is hard to perceive....it was a long way down!)
Looking up from the catwalk, you got an up-close view of the frescoes on the inside of the dome.
Becky in one of the narrow stairwells.
And then things REALLY got tight!
Herringbone pattern of the bricks filling in the dome.
Near the top of the dome and the last steep set of stairs.
A cupola with a view!
Looking back toward our hotel (just below the steeple of Santa Maria Novella Church).
Giotto's Bell Tower
Looking down
Looking toward the surrounding hills
Santa Croce Church (where Michelangelo is buried)
Palazzo Vecchio with Pitti Palace on the distant hill
We came back down and went in the side door (with our ArtFast Pass) and enjoyed the coolness of the cathedral. Its not really a spectacular interior (compared with some of the other Cathedrals we saw), but there were some cool details.
Standing on the Cathedral Floor looking up to the dome
We went outside and found a vendor with some bottled water and sat and took in the Piazza surround the Baptistry and the Cathedral, then walked up the street to the Palazzo Medici.
Interior courtyard of the Medici Palace
One of the painted ceilings in the Palazzo Medici
We tried to see the Capella Medici, but it turns out it wasn't included in our museum pass, so we skipped it and started walking back to our hotel. About a block away from the hotel, we found a small neighborhood grocery store where we picked up some crackers, cookies, fruit, juice and a HUGE bottle of water that was a fraction of the cost that we had found any place close to the tourist areas. (Such a find!) We dropped our things off at the hotel quickly and ran across the street to see the Santa Maria Novella Basilica that was closing at 4:30 pm. The basilica was begun in 1279 AD (Yes, that's almost 750 years old.) It had kind of a monastery or cloister feel to it. Since we were rushing up against closing time, we hurried over to the church and ended up at the exit. The guard was a bit annoyed with us because it was so close to their closing, but Becky pleaded and he let us in the exit so we could at least see part of it. (The Italians were very taken with Becky's blonde hair and we overheard many Italian men making comments as she passed by.) This guard was also smitten with her beauty and he let us in.
The interior courtyard.
One of the clothing exhibits.
A 13th century altar piece
One of the chapels
Arcade surrounding the courtyard. I love the "allsorts" striping of the stone. It's an architectural detail we saw frequently in Florence and Pisa.
A chapel off the courtyard
Detail of the frescoes on the gallery ceilings
The front door to the Basilica. We didn't actually get to enter the main sanctuary because they had closed by the time we made our way through. But I love the details of the front facade on the Piazza Santa Maria Novella.
Front door of the Basilica.
We made our way back to the hotel and took a nap during the late afternoon. About 7 pm we made our way out to the bus stop at the train station across from our hotel and picked up a local bus that ended up taking us the LONG way around the city up to Piazzale Michelangelo. The Piazzale is a plaza on the hill overlooking the City and has some spectacular views over Florence. (There is another replica of Michelangelo's David there, but I forgot to take a picture of it.) I had read online that it was a prime place to watch the sun set over Florence, but I had no idea how beautiful it actually would end up being.
The Palazzo Vecchio and the Duomo from Piazzale Michelangelo
Lots of tourists looking for the same view we were
A beauty in a beautiful place (Can you see why the Italians fell in love with her?)
Crowds set up on the steps and along the railings (Becky is in the middle of the steps)
This is what we sat and watched for about 10 minutes
The sun is just setting over the distant hill which you can just barely make out in the clouds
As the sun set behind the distance hills, the crowds clapped as if they were applauding a great performance (and it was). Walking down the hill down to the Arno River, we continued to have some spectacular views and listened to a live band playing music on one of the raised deck/balcony and waved to us as we walked by.
We walked along the Arno River toward the Ponte Vecchio
Looking down the street toward Ponte Vecchio
From the middle of Ponte Vecchio looking down the Arno River
We found a great shop selling Gelato, so we had to stop. My favorite was mango. The nice thing about this place was they added the fruits and other stuff so you could tell what kind of gelato it was and we could just point.
And then we found a pizza shop selling slices of pizza and sandwiches. It looked better than it actually was. I think it was the cheap stuff pawned off on us tourists. And the shopkeeper was a bit ornery.
We started walking back toward our hotel and came across the Piazza della Signoria. It was filled with people, some playing music on guitars or other instruments and hoping to pick up a few coins. As we walked past the Palazzo Vecchio, it was still open (and on our museum pass), so we went in. It was a beautiful palace filled with ornate rooms.
We started seeing the Medici family coat of arms all over Italy. (The 6 balls on a shield....usually a 3D representation, but sometimes painted.)
Notice the Medici coat of arms in the ceiling motif (the shield with the balls on it).
I loved this stone tile paving detail
The main assembly room where Medici govenment meetings were held
Outside the palazzo are a number of sculptures (I assume most are replicas of the originals) such as this copy of Michelangelo's David in its original location outside the palazzo. He was set up to be looking toward Rome...a symbolic gesture of small Florence fighting the big giant Rome.
We walked back to our hotel extremely exhausted. But we took a few minutes to enjoy the view from our balcony.
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