27 Mar 2015. <IT> Firenze, Toscana —

Back into Firenze today, to visit the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, better known as the Duomo. We went in early, as the queues here can be quite long! Suzie took our place in the queue while Warren went into the ticket office to get our tickets. Entry to the cathedral itself is free, but everything else needs to be ticketed. The ticket itself lasts for 24 hours from first use — which is just as well, as there's a lot to do!

First we went into the cathedral itself. The exterior is faced with pink, white and green marble, but when you go inside, it is a lot more restrained. Of course, the cupola above the transept, the interior of the dome itself, is decorated with an incredible fresco. The architect of the Duomo, Filippo Brunelleschi, virtually reinvented the dome, and had to wheedle the untrusting workmen into its construction between 1420 and 1436. It is still the largest brick dome ever constructed! There are frescoes on the walls, and a very interesting 24-hour clock at the back of the nave.

While in the Duomo, Suzie lit a candle for our friend Cathy, a distinct Florentophile, who might like a little external imspiration in her work towards her thesis!

Within the Cathedral is an archaeological site, the church that preceded the current cathedral, Santa Reparata. The excavation, between 1965 and 1974, has been entirely in the crypt and beneath the floor of the current cathedral, and is an achievement in its own right. People insisted on calling the older church Il Duomo, to the extend that a law had to be passed to force people to refer it as Santa Reparata. There are important graves down there, of bishops, and of the architect of the dome, Filippo Brunelleschi, It has been reconsecrated, and there is an alter down there that is obviously being used. We went into Santa Reparata at 11.30, which meant that our tickets woiuld then axpire 24 hours later — we needed to plan our time, as we intended to climb Giotto's Campanile today and up to the dome itself tomorrow — doing the two without a sleep in between would be asking a little much of our legs — 414 steps to climb the campanile, 463 for the dome!

A view from the Campanile

It's a l-o-o-o-o-ng way down!

Looking down inside!

After leaving the Campanile, we went down to Piazza della Signoria for lunch in a cafe there. We needed a new external hard drive for the computer, and our waiters pointed us to the railway station, which has quite a complex of shops beneath it — including one where we were able to complete our shopping mission.

Then we went back to Piazza Duomo, where we went into the Baptistery. This building is undergoing considerable renovation. The whole baptistry is shrouded with screens (which happen to carry photographic reproductions of what lies beneath), but the interior of the baptistry is fully open for business! It's amazing - where the interior of the Duomo is somewhat restrained, the baptistery is covered inside with the most incredible mosaics. The reason for a separate baptistry, by the way, is that in Renaissance times the unbaptised were not welcome within the main church, so a separate baptistry was set up to get the job done, after which they were able to enter the cathedral. 

The famous Ghiberti door to the Baptistery, The Door of Paradise was only just visible behind some of the Baptistery's wrapping, and the inevitable crowd of tourists, but we were able to get in close for a good look-see.

We left the baptistery at about 3pm, and walked the one block to the Guardia Medica Turistica, where Dottore Pasholli went through all our requirements, translated them into drugs available in Italy, and wrote prescriptions to last us for six months, and pointed is to the Farmacia Molteni, just down the road in Via Calzaiuoli, who know him well and would call him with any problems. So we went down to the pharmacy, gave them our prescriptions, telling them we would return after we had been up to the top of the Duomo tomorrow.

Walking about town, we found a rather good jazz trio in Piazza della Repubblica, and leather shops everywhere — leather and Florence go hand in hand. And we noticed a special benefit small cars have in Italy — they can park any way they like! So, after a very fascinating but tiring day, we caught a bus back to our van for the night.

Distance driven — today, nil; to date, 16,625 miles ( 26,756 km )

26 Mar 2015. <IT> Firenze, Toscana —

Firenze. The day, although grey and spitting rain a little, is a lot better than yesterday, so we took the bus into town. We got off near Piazza Santa Maria Nuova and dropped in to the Ospedale Santa Maria Nuova (the oldest hospital in Florence, founded in 1288!) — we need to get more prescriptions to be filled before we venture into Eastern Europe. They weren't in a position to help us directly, but they pointed us to the Guardia Medica Turistica, operated by the Misericordia di Firenze, itself founded in 1244, who run an open clinic for tourists from 2pm to 4pm every weekday.

But first, The Uffizi! One of the most incredible places you could wish to visit, one of the oldest and most famous galleries in the world. If you haven't pre-booked (as we hadn't), you have to queue, and the queue advances in bursts as restricted numbers are let in in bunches. We queued for 90 minutes. It brought back memories of Expo88 in Brisbane, where queuing became a culture! But our queueing was far from boring — we met an American lay Dominican brother, Brother Thomas, who was a most entertaining conversationalist — particularly as Warren's historical studies meant that they were talking on the same wavelength — music, mediaeval history, science fiction — and don't mention the Spanish Inquisition! Finally we were let loose in the Uffizi. In the main corridors there are Roman statues, paintings hanging on the walls behind them, and the ceiling is the most incredible confection of 16th century painting. Then, there are rooms off to the side, containing paintings (and more sculpture). Much of it is from the Renaissance, but there are earlier and later works as well. Okay, they have some Leonardo, some Tiziano, some Raffello, but the two rooms that really had the most impact for us were literally packed with Botticelli! We can't get over his exquisite female faces!

Michelangelo Buonarottu
The Holy Family
with the infant John the Baptist

Botticelli
The Adoration of the Magi

Botticelli — probable self-portrait
in The Adoration of the Magi

Leonardo da Vinci
The Annunciation

And then we went downstairs, to the foreign painters, and found — without any fuss — an El Greco and a Goya, both of which we recognised immediately after our intimate relationships with these artists in Toledo and Madrid! And there were three of the Rembrandt self portraits! In this section were several paintings by Rubens, Van Dyck, and other 'foreign' painters.

El Greco

Goya

Rembrandt self-portraits

We left the Uffizi and went out into Piazza della Signoria to explore it and the Loggia dei Lanzi. We dropped in to the Palazzo Vecchio, which contains more museums. Unfortunately, they were closed, as they were setting up for a visit by the Italian president in a couple of days. But the day was getting on anyway, so we decided to make our way back to the van to recover from a wonderful day of exploring the Uffizi and just walking the streets of Firenze, which are now starting to become alive with the first flush of spring tourists!

Must point out that our bus trips in and out of town today were an experience. You've heard stories of the cramming of passengers into Tokyo's trains — well, this was much the same — except that the Japanese tend to get quieter under pressure, but the Italians — ah, the Italians! The ticket validation machine on the bus was towards the front, and the passengers who had boarded through the rear doors had no way of getting to it, so they simply bundled up their tickets, passed them forward to whoever was nearest the machine, and the validated tickets were then relayed back to them. Hilarious!

Distance driven — today, nil; to date, 16,625 miles ( 26,756 km )