Travel Blog: May as well just get on with it
Night at work continues not too bad *knock on wood or at least what ever this desk is made out of*. May as well just kick off again.
In the interests of this not taking me a million year or, more likely, this never getting finished, I'm going to try and be a bit quicker with my descriptions and recounting and generally be a bit briefer (which I'm so good at of course).
After Rome we moved on to Florence. Firenze is a amazing city to walk around, with a amazing renaissance feel to the place (and not in that American, SCA type feel). The streets are crowded with historic buildings (unsurprising with the entire central city being a UNESCO site) but the city still seems vibrant and alive with street markets and the bustle of modern living still going on (Italian modern living being a particularly bustlesome form of modern life). Also with hills and a river nearby it's relatively easy to get nice views out over the city.
The Lonely Planet was certainly elevated in our opinion when it lead us to a restaurant which served one of our highlight meals of our trip, even if the waiter did smile after I ordered my starter and main and said, "Ah you want the Lonely Planet special? No, no, you should have it, it's very good and classic Firenze dish, it's just the same thing anyone who has the Lonely Planet guide orders". Regardless of his wry humour, the waiter gave us amazing service and a delicious (and free) aperitif and a strong and settling ... what ever the drink at the end of a meal is called. If your going to Florence, definitely go here (ask and I'll find out it's name and whereabouts).
Anyway, Any trip to Florence wouldn't be complete without some serious art viewing. We went to the Accademia Gallery on our first day there to see David in all his glory. It's a pretty amazing looking statue and the room they have him displayed in also ahs several other, unfinished works by Michelangelo, similarly sculpted out of a single piece of marble which give an interesting insight into how the work was created. The rest of the exhibits at the Accademia were also pretty cool, with one of my favourites being the renaissance music room which had working replicas of different instruments (as well as display piece of the real thing) and a great interactive display on the view of music in the different periods of Italy (which I took notes on to steal ideas from for later).
Another day we went to the Uffizi Gallery, which has a whole host of amazing art work including Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Caravaggio's Bacchus. The whole building itself is pretty amazing (yet another example of no where to look that isn't art), having originally been the administrative headquarters for the Medici family, who were pretty important fellows in the area for quite a long time. The only down side to going here was the amazing lines, which we were especially disappointed in because a) the lines at the Accademia were non-existent and b) you could pay extra money to get a preferential ticket. While that on it's own isn't too bad, when they entirely ignore the line of people who arrived early and brought regular tickets for >1 hour, it sours the whole thing a little.
Other cool things we did included going into (but not to the top of) the Duomo (beautiful and interesting on the outside, inside just pretty cool); going along the Ponte Vecchio, which has the city's goldsmith street on it (much to Giffy's delight); going inside the Santa Croce Basilica which houses the tombs of Galileo, Michelangelo, Machiavelli and Dante which was pretty crazy for just having so many famous Italians buried there; going to, but not having time to go in the Palazzo Pitti which had the Costume Gallery that Giffy particularly wanted to see but oh well, next time :).
All in all, Florence was a great destination and I'm glad we went there. We'd had our expectations raised pretty high though before we got there with people telling us it was the greatest place on earth, so I came away feeling a little let down but on reflection, we did do a whole lot of awesome stuff there. For my future info, we stayed at Florence PLUS (People Like Us) which was fine (and had a sauna and pool) and cheap but not great.
So much for keeping it short
In the interests of this not taking me a million year or, more likely, this never getting finished, I'm going to try and be a bit quicker with my descriptions and recounting and generally be a bit briefer (which I'm so good at of course).
After Rome we moved on to Florence. Firenze is a amazing city to walk around, with a amazing renaissance feel to the place (and not in that American, SCA type feel). The streets are crowded with historic buildings (unsurprising with the entire central city being a UNESCO site) but the city still seems vibrant and alive with street markets and the bustle of modern living still going on (Italian modern living being a particularly bustlesome form of modern life). Also with hills and a river nearby it's relatively easy to get nice views out over the city.
The Lonely Planet was certainly elevated in our opinion when it lead us to a restaurant which served one of our highlight meals of our trip, even if the waiter did smile after I ordered my starter and main and said, "Ah you want the Lonely Planet special? No, no, you should have it, it's very good and classic Firenze dish, it's just the same thing anyone who has the Lonely Planet guide orders". Regardless of his wry humour, the waiter gave us amazing service and a delicious (and free) aperitif and a strong and settling ... what ever the drink at the end of a meal is called. If your going to Florence, definitely go here (ask and I'll find out it's name and whereabouts).
Anyway, Any trip to Florence wouldn't be complete without some serious art viewing. We went to the Accademia Gallery on our first day there to see David in all his glory. It's a pretty amazing looking statue and the room they have him displayed in also ahs several other, unfinished works by Michelangelo, similarly sculpted out of a single piece of marble which give an interesting insight into how the work was created. The rest of the exhibits at the Accademia were also pretty cool, with one of my favourites being the renaissance music room which had working replicas of different instruments (as well as display piece of the real thing) and a great interactive display on the view of music in the different periods of Italy (which I took notes on to steal ideas from for later).
Another day we went to the Uffizi Gallery, which has a whole host of amazing art work including Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Caravaggio's Bacchus. The whole building itself is pretty amazing (yet another example of no where to look that isn't art), having originally been the administrative headquarters for the Medici family, who were pretty important fellows in the area for quite a long time. The only down side to going here was the amazing lines, which we were especially disappointed in because a) the lines at the Accademia were non-existent and b) you could pay extra money to get a preferential ticket. While that on it's own isn't too bad, when they entirely ignore the line of people who arrived early and brought regular tickets for >1 hour, it sours the whole thing a little.
Other cool things we did included going into (but not to the top of) the Duomo (beautiful and interesting on the outside, inside just pretty cool); going along the Ponte Vecchio, which has the city's goldsmith street on it (much to Giffy's delight); going inside the Santa Croce Basilica which houses the tombs of Galileo, Michelangelo, Machiavelli and Dante which was pretty crazy for just having so many famous Italians buried there; going to, but not having time to go in the Palazzo Pitti which had the Costume Gallery that Giffy particularly wanted to see but oh well, next time :).
All in all, Florence was a great destination and I'm glad we went there. We'd had our expectations raised pretty high though before we got there with people telling us it was the greatest place on earth, so I came away feeling a little let down but on reflection, we did do a whole lot of awesome stuff there. For my future info, we stayed at Florence PLUS (People Like Us) which was fine (and had a sauna and pool) and cheap but not great.
So much for keeping it short