Oversleeping in Florence

October 22, 2008
Florence, Italy

Today could not have started out any worse. I was scheduled to go on a full day tour that would take me to Florence and to Pisa, but I woke up an hour after I was supposed to be ready. I ran to the room where the tour groups were meeting and the tour office told me that it was not a big deal and that they could stick me on the last bus for the “Florence on Your Own” tour, which is exactly what it says it is. The ship actually docks in Livorno, Italy, which is close to 100 kilometers west of Florence, so guests are able to book this “tour” which provides them with bus rides to and from the city, an English-speaking guide (or at least one who is supposed to speak English; mine was quite hard to understand), and a map of the city to help make your day a little easier. I had never done one of these “city on your own” tours but was excited to explore a new city on my own.

After getting a bit of sleep on the bus, I arrived in Florence at around 10:00am and was walked by the tour guide to the Piazza Santa Croce (Holy Cross Square) where I decided to go into the basilica. The church houses beautiful works of art including Donatello’s Annunciation and Crucifix, (though the latter was surrounded by scaffolding since the building was undergoing restoration), but the highlights for me were seeing the graves of Michelangelo, Galileo, Dante, and Machiavelli. All of their graves did not have tombstones; they had large sculptures, and each one was uniquely beautiful. I explored a bit more of the church and found more beautiful paintings, and ended up in a room outside the main basilica that contained old music books and also part of a robe worn by St. Francis of Assisi.

I stopped at a small café on the Piazza and grabbed a quick espresso before heading to the Duomo, otherwise known as the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, a 13th to 15th century church that is capped off by Brunelleschi’s cupola, a dome that rises 107 meters above the ground. For some random reason, I it made sense at the time to pay six Euros for the privilege of climbing 463 steps to reach the top of the dome, where one can go outside for a beautiful 360-degree panoramic view of Florence from about 105 meters up. I took some pictures, took it all in, and climbed down before heading to my next stop: the Galleria dell'Accademia.

I headed north of the Duomo to the Galleria with one intention: I was going to see Michelangelo’s most famous sculpture: David. I waited in line for close to twenty minutes before finally gaining entry to the museum and gallery, and was immediately taken aback by Renaissance sculptures and paintings in every direction. I saw a sign for a gallery of old musical instruments and welcomed the pleasant surprise. It is always exciting to stumble upon a few priceless string instruments, including violins and a cello made by Stradavari, among other things. In the gallery was also a copy of one of the first Bartolomeo Cristofori pianos. He is credited with inventing the piano in the early eighteenth century, and they had a few other instruments of his including a harpsichord and spinet, and it was exciting to see these as well.

I left the musical instrument gallery and knew it was time to see what I had come to see in the first place. I went back to the hall I first entered and went the other way from the instruments, looked to my right, and saw five amazing sculptures: sculptures of the four prisoners done by Michelangelo were in the hall I was walking through (with two on each side), and at the end of the hall, there it was. I always imagined that David would be at most five or six feet tall. It had to be close to twice as large as I anticipated, and looked even larger as it was sitting on a five-foot-high block of marble. Once again, despite photography being forbidden, I navigated away from the two ladies whose singular job is to tell you not to take pictures (and be quite nasty about it as well), and snapped a few quick shots of the sculpture, at which point I found myself frozen in amazement. I kept looking up at it from different angles and admiring the amazing detail. The interesting thing is that before today, I had no idea that David was in Florence. I did not know where it was, but it was an amazing surprise to learn I was going to be able to see it while riding from Livorno to Florence and I capitalized on this opportunity without hesitation. I probably spent twenty or thirty minutes just walking around and staring at David before I decided to go off and headed for the Uffizi Gallery.

I arrived in about twenty minutes at the Uffizi Gallery in hopes of seeing some works of art by Da Vinci and other Renaissance masters, but after getting in a long line that moved five feet in ten minutes, I decided that I would have to come back another time to visit this huge gallery. Nonetheless, I feel like I got in my fair share of sightseeing in just a few hours, and left the line in search of a nice place to have lunch.

I wandered across the Ponte Vecchio, an old bridge in Florence that crosses the Arno River, and enjoyed the views while crossing before I found a small riverside restaurant where I sat down, reviewed my morning photos, (I took about 150 today), and had a nice meal. I did not go with anything that was super-Italian, but stuck with a traditional chicken breast with a side of sautéed spinach. It was tasty, and I enjoyed the peace and serenity of being out on an enclosed terrace. The only thing I did not enjoy was the cover charge that every restaurant seems to impose on you for dining in. The one I went to charged me four Euros to sit outside; it would have been two and a half Euros to dine indoors, and I do not agree with this custom. I cannot understand how a restaurant can impose an additional charge just for sitting down. I have heard that casinos in Monaco also charge you just to enter despite the fact that you will most likely be giving them a good amount of money when you lose at their tables and slot machines. Nonetheless, I am getting used to Italy being quite an expensive country and I am appreciating having almost no living expense whatsoever.

After lunch, I took a short walk farther south of the Arno river but did not encounter anything worth mentioning so I headed back to my tour group meeting place in the Piazza Santa Croce which seemed like a place where people go to just hang out. It reminded me a bit of Union Square or Washington Square Park in New York, in that there were street musicians, people just sitting on the pavement, and plenty of people passing through. I had about thirty minutes to kill so I spent them relaxing in the Piazza and listening to some music before heading back to the bus.

All in all, my first experience in Florence was exciting, and I am very thankful I was able to see so much. As I spend more time in all these wonderful Italian cities, I further contemplate planning an extended vacation to Italy so that I can see more sights in more time without having to rush through everything that I see.

Due to inclement weather in the Bay of Lyon and in Marseilles, the captain of the Queen Victoria informed us yesterday evening that we would be headed for Cannes, so instead of seeing Marseilles and Avignon, I will be traveling to Cannes and Nice. Nonetheless, it should be an exciting day tomorrow and this weekend as well as we are overnighting in Barcelona on Friday. Stay Tuned.