Since our arrival in Florence, we’d not really gotten to see any of the city yet. So our plan for today had been to see as much as possible, but with my sister’s ankle now injured we couldn’t really predict anything.
Unsure of whether I’d get to see the Piazza Michelangelo any other way, I decided that for today’s marathon training run I would run there, take a few photographs just after sunrise, and then run back for breakfast and a shower.
I found my way to the river easily enough and crossed at the Ponte Vecchio. From there I took what I thought would be the most direct route up, but due to a closed path this turned out to be steeper and longer than expected. Towards the top I came across the Abbazia di San Miniato al Monte before carrying on up to the top of the hill. The first thing I could see was the bronze of Michaelangelo’s David, and then beyond that a view over Florence. At sunrise this is an amazing view, with the cathedral standing out amongst a sea of white and orange buildings, that are kept in by the surrounding mountains. To the east I could see many trees, but the blindingly bright rising sun made this direction difficult to see in.
My route back to the apartment was a much easier and simpler descent to the river, and I crossed over the Ponte alle Grazie. It hadn’t quite been the run I was supposed to do, but I felt the incline made up for that.
Once we’d both had breakfast, we took our time getting ready to go out as I felt there was no point in rushing. Knowing that I needed to cut the day short, I decided to get to the Florence Cathedral first as that was the priority. This was a short walk from the apartment, although as her ankle was not yet used to being walked on again we rested on the steps of the Cappella Antinori on the way.
When we made it to the cathedral we wandered around the busy square, and eventually I found the ticket office. The dome was sold out for today, so I booked us tickets for Friday instead. This meant that our entire morning of plans would now be skipped, so I started to think about what we could do instead. It’d been hard work for her to get this far as her ankle, and she was in tears. I was unsure if it was pain, or frustration at not being able to do things. She felt she was ruining the holiday. I assured her we’d only be doing what she was capable of, and we’d already seen a fair bit.
The next thing on my list for today was the Bargello National Museum, so we headed in the general direction of that, but I felt that my sister would be unlikely to want to go in. I photographed the building on passing, and we sat on the stairs outside the Chiesa di san Firenze. She thought it was just a museum behind us, but when I insisted there was a church there as well we decided to poke our heads in to have a look. It was nothing special considering what we’d seen so far, but when we left, she decided she felt good enough to go inside the Bargello museum.
The museum requires you to go through a metal detector as you enter, and then costs €8.00 to look around. My sister sat in the courtyard whilst I went upstairs and viewed the two floors up there. There were bronzes, pottery, and many religious artefacts and weapons. When I completed both floors, I found a lift so returned to the ground floor to let her know it was there. Knowing she wouldn’t need to be using stairs she was happy to look around one of the floors, and enjoyed herself getting some more photographs before we returned to the ground floor and left.
We wandered for some time after that, trying to find our way to the Teatro Verdi as I thought it might be something to see, but instead we caught sight of a building which turned out to be the Palazzo Vecchio, and as we got closer we spotted the Neptune fountain in Piazza della Signoria. This square was filled with so many tourists that it was difficult to get photographs of the palace. Ahead of us we could also see an impressive array of statues raised up by the side of the entrance to Uffizi Gallery. We spent more time looking at these before deciding what to do.
My sister had decided we’d get gelato from the nearby gelateria, but this one didn’t show prices. I decided to go for a nutty cone which was far bigger than I’d realised, and had a scoop of mango, and a scoop of passion fruit. My sister went for a reasonable sized tub, and these together cost us €13! We were shocked at the cost as they were by far the most expensive gelatos of this trip. I didn’t realise it could cost that much even around a tourist trap.
We sat on a step for a while and tried to eat them faster than they were melting, but ultimately failed at this. It was a constant stream of molten ice cream running over my hand, and dripping to the floor. It was handy that the Uffizi gallery had hand sanitiser stations outside! As we were heading in that general direction we decided to look inside the Palazzo Vecchio to see what was there. Inside we could see the ambulance we’d heard earlier, so it seemed like there’d been some sort of emergency here.
The downstairs of the palace is free to walk around, and isn’t too bad really, but we didn’t pay to go upstairs. If we had done, perhaps we’d have gotten to see the start of the Vasari corridor which runs from there across the top of a few buildings until it reaches the Ponte Vecchio and then finishes at the Boboli Gardens of the Pitti Palace. Traversing that corridor would have been nice, particularly due to it having featured in Dan Brown’s Inferno.
We may not have been using the Vasari corridor, but we still made our way towards the Ponte Vecchio, but half-crossed the Ponte alle Grazie instead. It was quite warm at this time of the morning, with no shade to be found. The stop was a photography one, but we got talking to an Australian couple, and they gave my sister some anti-inflammatories to help with her swollen ankle. If the compression stocking and the paracetamol didn’t help her get around Florence, perhaps they would.
From there we continued on our way to the theatre, but again came across something else to see first. This was the Basilica di Santa Croce di Firenze which is definitely one of the nicer looking churches in Florence. This cost us €9.00 to go inside, and at first I was very doubtful about whether or not this was worth it. This seemed like a very ordinary church at first, but then we found there was more to it than we thought. There were courtyards and a refectory away from the main building, and this took us until lunchtime to see it all.
The stairs outside the church seemed like the best place to sit and eat our packed lunch. Whilst there my sister was tempted into buying a Pinnochio puppet for €15 having shopped around for the best price, and I bought a small bust of Leonardo, and a Venetian mask to go with my world mask collection back home. The significance of Pinnochio in Florence is that his creator, Carlo Lorenzinii, was born in Florence, and his mother from the nearby place called Callodi. My sister being a Walt Disney fan meant she took interest in the story of this.
After all the effort we’d taken to reach the Teatro Verdi, we found it hadn’t been worth the effort and was just an ordinary building not worth seeing. We were catastrophically low on cash though as neither of us had remembered to ‘top up’ before leaving out this morning, so we headed back to the apartment once again.
We sat around the apartment until 14:00, and then headed out. I thought it’d be a good idea to see the Pitti Palace this afternoon, so we went in that general direction. This time we crossed the Ponte Vecchio itself, and I found this was so much busier than it had been when I’d crossed during my run. This time the shops were open too, and they all seemed to be jewellers. Shortly after leaving the bridge I spotted Cafe Maioli and thought it’d be a nice idea to have a cake and a drink from there. This turned out to be a place you could sit down in, and they also have free Wi-Fi for customers. For two slices of Sachertorte and a soft drink this cost us a shocking €25. It’d been an expensive day for food so far, so it was lucky we’d saved so much by cooking our own for the first few days of the trip.
The Pitti Palace wasn’t very far from there, and has another large open square. The ticket choices were €16 for the palace, and €8 for the gardens, or €22 for a combined ticket. As we’d got plenty of time to spare before we’d be wanting to have an evening meal, we went for the combined ticket and then headed inside. This too required me to empty my pockets for the metal detector.
I did think the gallery would be a waste of time as it was advertised as modern art, but it’s actually a collection of old paintings, stone sculptures, and various other bits in the old state rooms of the palace. It was just like visiting any historic house back home, so I think my sister enjoyed this too even if the stairs were a little frustrating for her. She’d already done really well today though, so I hoped the next couple of days would go well for her as well.
Once out of the gallery, she rested a little in the courtyard whilst I photographed an indoor fountain and then a Russian chapel. This allowed her to prepare herself for the climb up some stairs to the gardens, but when she saw the steps up for them, she decided she’d rather not. She waited on the path around to the exit whilst I went half way up to where I’d seen a fountain. I then looked around the northern part of the gardens, not realising the southern part was considerably bigger. I left the gardens without having checked what was there.
With a few stops along the way, we made our way back towards the apartment and carried on a little past it to get some food from an Irish pub. Unfortunately they weren’t serving food today, but I’d remembered seeing another Irish pub with similar food options near the Odeon. This meant walking back in the direction we’d come from, but we got there. They’d not yet started serving yet, and had to wait until 18:30 to be seated for food. Unfortunately whilst we waited it seemed we’d become the food source for many a biting insect. Eventually, I had a BBQ burger with fries, and my sister had a cheese burger. It may have been unusual food for Italy, but we felt like a change.
The temperature had dropped quite a bit around sunset, so we made it into a brisk walk back to the apartment so we could relax before what would be another long day.