We’ve had three marvelous days in Florence, and now it’s time to move on … but where will we go? The answer is easy when you’ve got a grandson called Luca … we are off to Lucca in Tuscany of course! We have booked three nights in the Villa Corte Degli Dei, and are packed and ready to move on.
But first, final impressions of Florence. “Old Florence” is wonderful, with lots of ancient things to see, all of which you have to pay to see, of course. The Duomo looks like a huge white, pink and green marble wedding cake from outside, (inside is very subdued in comparison to the Venetian cathedral) and the three buildings, the Baptistery, the Duomo and the Campanile are dressed in the same marble finery.
Italians, both men and women (and even bambinos and dogs) generally have a fantastic dress sense. Everyone seems to wear jeans, and it’s what you dress them up with that counts. A down filled “puff” jacket in any of a rainbow of colours (it’s getting cold), knee high Prada boots (black), a long colourful scarf carelessly wrapped around the neck a couple of times and knotted in front, a large Gucci bag slung over one shoulder, your i-phone in one hand, and a Marlborough ciggie in the other. Yes, an astounding number of Italians, both men and women smoke. When outside, you can’t avoid walking through clouds of second-hand smoke. The same applied in Venice, but to a lesser degree. There are cigarette butts everywhere, no one seems to care about keeping their city streets clean and tidy.
In Florence, fashion is erverwhere
We had to make a trip to the Laundromat, and while I was sitting there watching our socks and jocks go around and around in the washing machine, Pete went to the station and booked our tickets to Lucca and return to Florence. We have to come back to Florence for our rail connection to Rome.
Then a visit to the Uffizi Gallery. WOW !!! !!! !!! The entire collection comprises some 50 rooms, and over 1,000 masterpieces. It is the “who’s who” of the art world in one building, from the Tuscan masters of the 12th to the 14th centuries, Renaissance artists , separate rooms devoted to Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Andrea del Sarto, and Caravaggio to name but a few. We sometimes had to run to stay ahead of a large group of Japanese tourists and their guide, who, when they descended en masse, filled the whole room and left no space for anyone else!
Outside the Uffizi, no cameras inside
Not the real David. One lives in Narre Warren
and the other is in the Galeria
Then, off to the station to catch our train. Our train fares cost 5 Euro more than planned, when a ticket inspector fined us for not having validated our tickets! Not being frequent train travelers we didn’t realize that we had to do this. We were lucky as the inspector took pity on us seniors, advising the usual on-the-spot fine was 40 Euros. We enjoyed our train journey through the Tuscan countryside, which took 1 ½ hours, it was a regional train stopping at all stations. More tomorrow.
Love to Marissa, Ella and Luca.
Allan, delighted to learn that Pat is home – please give her our love.
Ilze x
dipidydoo 