Florence

The day following the rugby game in Parma, we travelled to Florence. The train first took us to Bologna, then we changed trains and headed to Florence. We found ourselves now travelling through very pretty countryside.

Florence is my kind of place. That's probably because it's not too large but not too small either. I've studied its history and so know a bit and that probably helps too. Did we do the 463 steps to the top of the Duomo? I tried but don't have a head for heights, so gave up, the task was completed by my wife and daughter.

You need to buy a ticket to climb the steps and this same ticket gets you in to other things as well, such as the Duomo museum, baptistery, bell tower and crypt under the cathedral. All of these are well worth the price of the ticket, especially the museum and the area under the cathedral.

Some pics: you need to make an appointment for the 463 steps and the queuing spot is to the side of the building, not the main doors. By the way it's free to just enter the cathedral proper and to look around and many choose this option alone:

Queuing for the 463 steps:

Steps:

The ceiling from a viewing spot after 100 or so steps (I gave up after this):

The view from the top (thank you to the wife):

There are other sights as well, all within easy walking distance of one another:

And of course, the one thing everyone wants to see, the statue of David which sits in the Museo Accademia:

They've built a hall to show the statue off to maximum effect and they've done this well. I failed to take a photo of my favourite painting though (dang) which sits to the right of David as we look at it. The reason I liked it was the story behind its discovery, if I remember correctly it sat in a basement for years and the owner thought it may be worth something and had it valued. Worth nothing came the answer and so being so large it just sat in the basement some more. Then the owner had another go at getting it valued, this time the valuer recognised the hand and it turns out to be worth a lot. So now it sits alongside the greats. And yes I dream of a find like that. I'll call this work the painting of the Madonna with the big boobies for want of knowing its exact name.

This was breakfast the next day, downstairs from our apartment:

Italians put Nutella in everything:

This was the place, nice people and a place full of locals:

This was the view from our apartment, run by Anna Berti, she's on Booking.com and she thought of everything, her business is very well run:

We were in Florence for a week, the wife went to the opera and travelled to the Chianti region, while daughter and I went looking for the lost Medici fortune in the Medici park. All we found was some fallen trees.

We didn't get to Pisa and other places of note, we'll be back and 'do' those places later. Daughter says I've got a serious man crush on Cosimo de' Medici. Well yes, the man was a genius.