After two months of traveling through northern Italy, Scotland and Switzerland (not staying in any one city for more than 3 weeks), we were exhausted and anxious to settle in one place for a while. So, rather than returning to Rome, we decided to rent an apartment in Florence for 2 months, hoping to experience La Dolce Vita, Florentine style. Aside from the obvious reasons (art, architecture, it's Tuscany!), we decided to spend our spring in Florence (Firenze, in Italian)because it's supposed to have the best weather this time of year, it's visited by only a fraction of the tourists who take over the town during the summer, and the people speak the most perfect Italian dialect. Oh, and it has the world's best gelato! We are so there!!
Our apartment is just one block east of Signoria Square on Via Vinegia. Here's Casandra on our street with the Palazzo Vecchio's bell tower above.
Only a few blocks north of Signoria Square (and our apartment) is Piazza di San Giovanni, where Florence's Duomo (or main Cathedral) and Baptistry are situated. Here we are in front of the Duomo's Neo-Gothic facade. We'll tell you more about the Duomo and it's important (and long) history in our next post after we've visited the interior.
Florence's Duomo is one of the few churches in the world that's completed covered in marble. Most churches, even those in Rome, only have marble covering the facade. But just about every inch of this one is encrusted in white, green and pink marble. It's shockingly colorful and ornate, yet true to its Gothic origin.
And here we are in Piazza della Repubblica, which, in its current form, was built to commemorate the Unification of Italy, with Florence as the capital of the new republic from 1865-1870 until the liberation of Rome. The grand Piazza sits over the site of the ancient Roman Forum. Florence was originally founded as the Roman city, Florentia, in 59 BC, and like all Roman cities, it needed a forum for its pagan temples and government basilicas.
A few blocks to the northeast of our apartment is Piazza Santa Croce, the 14th Century Franciscan church in which many Italian greats, including Michelangelo, Gallileo, Machiavelli, Marconi and Rossini, are entombed. Dante Alighieri is honored inside and outside this church, with a memorial inside (no body, because it rests in Ravenna, see previous post) and a huge statute outside (visible in this picture).
Here we are on a bridge over the Arno River with the Ponte Vecchio, which dates back to Roman times, in the background. The Ponte Vecchio once housed Florence's butcher shops and tanneries but in the 1500s, the Medicis booted out these "dirty" businesses and replaced them with the city's gold and silversmiths. Now the bridge contains is a slew of overpriced jewelry stores and a statute honoring Cellini, Florence's most famous goldsmith.
This is one of our favorite views of Florence, from Ponte delle Grazie which is just one bridge east of the Ponte Vecchio.
We better savour every minute we have in this amazing city.
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