Firenze

 

The picture above is taken at the top of the duomo in Florence.  More about that in a minute...

Florence is a hustling city, small in physical size but huge as far as people, culture, shopping and sightseeing is concerned.  Argueably most people come to Florence for the art galleries (Michelangelo's David lives here) but the Duomo is supposedly the 3rd largest in Europe. Let me tell you when you round the corner and see the Duomo, you don't really care if it's 3rd, 4th or tenth, it just is really impressive.  Rick Steeves describes it as a church in it's pajama's but I think they must be pretty fancy pajama's if that is what he thinks of it!

We walked from the train station through the town to our apartment. We thought that because we were going to be here for 4 nights we would like an apartment with a kitchen and laundry. This was a good call...a very good call. Our little home was a 16th century apartment with a 17th century painting on the ceiling.  Although we only had sporatic hot water, we turned a blind eye to the lttle annoyances to concentrate more on the subtle things that made this place so cool. The door going in from the street was at least 20 feet high, inside that there was an iron gate that stood at least 25 feet high and as Joe said, "I have no idea how many men it took to hang that door but count me OUT!"

The Oak Bay gang had told us where we must go and what we must see and I am so thankful that we did everything they told us to do!  The Tuesday market was incredible, the drink at the Savoy was outrageously expensive but well worth the price for the people watching, the free anipasti and the location!  (Thanks for that one Bill!)  Massimo, the leather guy (apparently THEE guy) to see about coats, was not only charming but very accomodating.  A rotten woman from a country south of ours took the coat I was going to buy, so Massimo, not only ordered one for me but he custom fit one for me to make up for the other woman taking mine.  The only stipulation was I had to come back the next day to get it. I had no problem with waiting 24 hours for my new leather coat. Steve looks absolutely fantastic in his as you can see in the picture above. 
On our way back to our apartment one night we ran into the Food Network Chef, David Adggi, who is on Restaurant Makeover.  We stopped and said hi, and asked if he had any recommendations for dinner.  I think we threw him off a bit because he looked at us funny and asked us where on earth we were from. We told him we were from Victoria and that we loved his show. He thought that it was hilarious to be recognized in Italy by some random Canadians. I don't know who was more thrilled, us for seeing him or him for being recognized!  Ha, I knew my obsession for the food network would come in handy some day!!!
 

Thanks to D'arcy who suggested we download Rick Steeves podcasts of Italy, we got free tours of the Uffizi Gallery and a walking tour of Florence which helped with the orientation.  Unfortunately, I did not do my homework and I thought the statue of David was at the Uffizi, but in fact it is in the Accademia, so we stood in line for 90 minutes, when what I really wanted to see was down the road.  By the time we got out of there it was too late to see DAVE!!!!  We have to come back to Florence to drop off the rental car so i will see him then.  I did not come all this way to see a fake David in the Piazza!
I think the highlight for us both was the walk to the top of the duomo.  463 steps up (about half the Eiffel Tower).  The warning were clear...People with heart problems and claustrophia should not enter.  I get that, it was a tight staircase, and in spots you were passing people coming down. I felt very sorry for the young woman in front of us who was afraid of heights.  After about 300 stairs you could tell the panic was starting and her breathing became loud and anxious.  The last 25 stairs she was crying her eyes out and at that point I actually understood how she felt.  I was starting to feel abit anxious myself.  The view from the top was worth it all though.  Impossible to describe. 
On our way back down I started to feel really sorry for the woman that had the panic attack, it was far scarier going down than it was going up.  That said, we were both very glad we made the trek.

We are now off to Tuscany, we are planning on staying in San Gimignano for one night before heading to Siena.  I can hardly wait to drive our rental car out of Florence. If we can drive in Australia, we can drive anywhere!!!
Oh ya, we also walked across the Ponte Vecchio (pictured below) where Joe was going to buy me a diamond necklace but I insisted he saved his money.  Is he lucky!

Tuscany here we come.