I was staying at the campsite outside Florence for two days. The plan was to go and explore the first day but make mental notes of places to go back to or places to visit in more detail for the second day. Even so, there was a lot of this beautiful city that I missed...
I started early as always, and was waiting at the bus stop at 6:20am to catch the bus to the city. I thought getting in early would give me the best chance to get tickets to the Brunelleschi dome, as I'd read that they often have some spare tickets if you turn up to the ticket office early on the day. It was really nice being in the centre of Florence by the absolutely beautiful Duomo at that early hour as there was hardly anyone around! I was joined at the ticket office by an older couple, then a couple who had ridden in on a tandem bike and were obviously bikepacking across Europe. The ticket office opened at 8am, but there were no tickets left to the Duomo! Disappointed, I instead bought tickets to the campanile, the Duomo crypt and others.
You actually don't need a ticket to the Duomo, as it is free to enter. You do, however, need to line up, and that line often snakes around the whole cathedral itself! To be completely honest with you, it wasn't really worth the time and effort. There are many better churches that you can get in without waiting around. But I did make use of my ticket and poked around in the Crypt and the museum, which was quite interesting.
After viewing the Duomo, I went to climb up the campanile. This campanile was designed in the 14th century by Giotto, a Renaissance painter whose work is beautiful. He never got to see it completed, as he died as the first level was just constructed. But it was (almost) faithfully completed (the new builder didn't add a spire that Giotto had planned) and it is currently 85m tall. It has 414 steps to the top, and I walked every single one of them up, then down. I'm not sure this is what Giotto had in mind when he first set about building the campanile, however.
While I was disappointed about not getting tickets to Brunelleschi's dome, it turns out that you can't actually SEE the dome when you're standing on it. So actually the campanile was the better place to get a view of the dome! There was some rather unfortunate wire at the top of the campanile though, which made it really hard to take photos, because it was both thick and the holes were not very large. I get the whole "safety first" thing but it was a little annoying. I did manage to get a couple of good shots though...
I climbed all the way back down again and decided it was time to go elsewhere as the tourist hordes were moving in! I decided to go to San Lorenzo, a little way off. This is a very different kind of church because the facade is actually unfinished, and instead of gorgeous marble like the Duomo, the building's front is covered by oddly arranged bricks (apparently, this is so that the facade could be attached). Michaelangelo was actually contracted to design it and did a miniature design, but it was not built.
I did not, however, take a photo of the facade, as there was a lot of scaffolding going on for the building adjacent to it which cast some odd shadows over the church! But I did go inside, and it turned out that I was only 10 mins before a guided tour in English was about to start. I decided to take the tour, which turned out to be one of my better decisions - it was fascinating! I highly recommend it, as the building itself has a lot of really interesting history.
The church is actually the burial place of all of the important members of the Medici family, and their crest can be seen throughout the church. Michaelangelo, though he did not build the front, did actually construct a balcony that you could only access as part of a tour. There were some other gems such as a painting by Fra Filippo Lippi and some of the wooden inlays in the Medici Chapel.
From San Lorenzo I went for a meandering walk, ending up at a restaurant when I decided I was too hungry to keep going - well, it was 2pm! There was just so much to see in Florence! I spend an hour having lunch, then set off again...
After lunch, the next church to visit was Santa Croce. When I got there, there was a huuuuge construction zone going on in front of the church so getting a nice photo of it proved a challenge! I didn't go inside, as you had to pay and I was a bit churched-out. So I escaped from the clouds of concrete dust to the relative safety of the Arno river. Ponte Veccho was the next port of call!
I had always wanted to visit Ponte Vecchio, a bridge that was built in the 14th century and features a whole lot of shops hanging off the sides of the bridge. It really was a crazy piece of construction! I got there at about 3:30pm, however, and it was heaving! How the old bridge managed to stay up with the volume of people walking across it, I will never know. This was one of those sites that I decided to come back to tomorrow morning (early). I crossed it, however, as I wanted to walk up to the Piazzale Michaelangelo, which I promptly made for when I got to the other side just to escape the crowds!
The walk up to the Piazzale Michaelangelo was a HOT one. You had to walk up a hill, then stairs that just kept going. The view from the top, though..... it was all worth it!
As I was walking down from Piazzale Michaelangelo, I decided it was time to head back to the campsite. It was about 4:30pm, and would take me a good half hour to walk back to the bus stop, then another 45 mins back to the campsite. I was knackered. I'd been going since 6:00am that morning when I left the campsite! So I dragged my tired self back, had a shower and had a nice, relaxing evening to prepare for another day of it again tomorrow!
