Florence - 2

Florence - Day 2

This day we decided to take a city buss tour to get our bearings so we walked over to the Stazione Centrale where the tour busses rolled out from. The Centrale is opposite the Santa Maria Novella,  the first church in Florence.

The bus tour started through what looked to be a pretty boring part of the city, but then there was one of the old city gates, the wall long gone but the gate , one of several we say, is still standing.

As I said, the route was rather boring, not a lot of significant buildings and the commentary was hard to hear on my connection. One of the last buildings we saw before crossing the Arno was the Bibliotecha Nationale an early 20th century building

After this we crossed the Arno, the river which flooded a few years ago and caused a lot of damage to Florence.

On the southern side of the Arno we drove through some very leafy streets, obviously a very posh part of Florence, to the Piazzale Michangelo. While this lookout high over the city has the mandatory copy of the David, it also has a magnificent view of Florence.

Looking acros. s to the main part of Florence, centred on the Duomo.
You get a feeling of the size of this building as it towers over the city.

Looking down the Arno towards the Ponte Veccio

B efore getting back on the bus we took a stroll up the hill a little way

Across the road through the trees you can see a remnant of the
old city wall

Kilroy was here, well I was anyway

Looking towards the Piazza della Signoria and the original Medici Palace, Plazzo Veccio

Hopping back on the next bus we passed through another of the City gates which still had some wall attached

Tried to get off the bus at the Pitti palace but did not get downstairs quickly enough and ended getting off at the Ponte Santa Trinita, the next bridge down the Arno from the ponte Veccio. the bridge in this picture. We walked across to the north side of the Arno and had lunch in a small trattoria, then walked over the Ponte Veccio to go to the Pitti

Ponte Veccio with the Vasari Corridor running across the top of the Bridge.

The Corridor connects the Palazzo Veccio, the Medici Palace on the Piazza del Signoria, to the Pitti Palace. It was built so the Medici could travel between their homes without being exposed to the common people, and probably because they feared assasination.

Crossing the Ponte Veccio. The bridge is lined with jewellery shops,
originally Goldsmiths after the butchers were evicted by the Medici,
 to remove the smell from their walk.

The Pitti Palace, the home of the Medici from about 1585, now a series of art museums

 We went in and looked at the artworks in the Palatine museum. A huge collection of old masters, many well known to us from the art books, but to see them in the flesh, so to speak was fantastic. Of course there was a lot of flesh exposed in the pictures.

Then it was back to the buss and another hop on to get us back to the Station, a short walk than from the Pitti.

This is looking down the Via Romana, the old Roman road, towards Rome.

 When we got back to the Piazza Santa Maria Novella we decided to visit the church since we were there. The entrance is through a walled garden with grave markers around the edge of the grassed and treed area.They seemed to date from the early 19thC

Inside the church was beautiful. There were a number of particularly beautiful stained glass windows

 And the Alter area was astonishing.

Behind the alter the walls were frescoed with scenes of daily life in early Florence

More stained glass

 In one of the side chapels was a magnificent screen

And the church shop had these magnificent windows partially hidden by a huge  triptych

At the back of the church was a beautiful fresco of the Annunciation

In then Spanish chapel there were interesting frescoes. This chapel was so called because the Convent  that this church was originally part of granted the chapel for the use of the spanish wife of one of the Medici who allowed the Spanish community to use it.

The front facade of the Santa Maria Novella