For the last two days we have been experiencing the sights of Florence. It’s another nice city, and a major art centre in Italy.
We got important things out of the way first by taking Rodney’s bike to the bike shop for someone to have a look at the gears. He spent about 15mins fiddling, charged a low price of five euros and got 95% of the job done. Rodney finished it off back at camping in the afternoon, and did some work on mine for good measure. He was also very chuffed with his bush bike stand, which consisted of a tree and an ocky strap.
We visited the cathedral, one of the buildings that dominates the cityscape. The bell tower is stunning, with well-maintained white, pink and green marble and the inside is just as impressive.
We got up early this morning and lined up outside the Uffizi gallery half an hour before it opened. Apparently you can wait in line for two hours during peak season otherwise. Once we got through the airport-like security, we climbed to the top and worked our way down through all the Boticellis, da Vincis, Rembrandts, Michaelangelos etc as well as numerous lesser known works. We are now a bit Madonna-ed out!
Rodney already mentioned yesterday that we saw the bronze replica of Michaelangelo’s David in the piazza above camping. We also saw the stone replica in the Piazza Signoria outside the gallery, but didn’t wait in line to see the original. Still, two out of three Davids ain’t bad!
We have eaten more gelato, and had coffees and hot chocolates. This afternoon we hoofed it out to the hospital for a coffee, having been told by an English couple that this was a good place to get a cheap coffee. Not sure how cheap their coffee really was though, given that he first put a fence spike through his hand in order to get it. The hospital is a really nice building actually, with an old church and long history attached.
Tonight we are looking forward to a fireworks display as it is the Festival of St John here in Florence. There was a procession earlier that we missed because I thought it was tomorrow, not today. We won’t be able to miss the fireworks though as they are being set off about 100m from our tent!
Tomorrow we get on a train to the Italian/French border and will somehow get to Paris over the next few days. Should be good!