Our first full day in Florence started with a little indecision. What should we go see first? There are so many options here that we were having trouble prioritizing things. In the end we decided on just a couple and allowed ourselves time to wander and discover, which is probably the way Firenze should be done. The small winding roads of the Centro Storico were bathed in sunshine - a high of 30 degrees plus was expected. We thought it would take time to get used to the heat again, but given the setting it felt right.
We decided not to fight the hype and give in to the Duomo right away. We made our way back to the main square and around the cathedral to a small side entrance where we got to pay 6 euros a piece for the privilege of climbing 400 plus narrow, steep stone stairs to the top of the gargantuan dome and up to the cupola on top. There's no getting around how much work the stairs are, but it is absolutely worth it, even before you get all the way to the top. There is a brief respite as you walk along the inside of the dome taking in the magnificent fresco. How they managed to get it all done so high up so long ago, and do it with perfect perspective is beyond me. I started getting the heebie-jeebies as we walked along the narrow stone ledge several hundred feet above the cathedral floor. A few more stairs, including some extremely steep ones at the top part of the dome, and we popped back out into the fresh air at the very top of the cupola. The view was astounding, the entire city spread out below and perfect Tuscan scenes of rolling hills and terracotta roofs stretching to the horizon. We started down not looking forward to more stairs, but going down was significantly easier.
Afterwards, with feet back firmly on the ground, we queued for a few minutes to get into the cathedral itself. Everything you marvel at about the outside, is doubled and tripled inside the building. The marble designs on the floor are amazing. I think it was the top attraction, even over the large paintings, stained glass and wall clock.
We thought about tacking on the Baptistry, but it had yet to open, so we wandered over to the Piazza della Republica for a quick lunch. Although Fiona's undercooked shrimp left something to be desired, the post lunch giant gelato made up for it.
Post-gelato we went to the Piazza del Signoria, in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, which has several large sculptures in the courtyard, including a copy of the famous David, a beautiful bronze of Perseus slaying Medusa and another copy, this of the slightly less famous Rape of the Sabine Women. It definitely got our sculpture antennae buzzing - this seems to be the perfect city to indulge our new found passion.
We jumped right in to one of the finest collection of sculptures at the Museo Bargello. Besides the many fine main items - we especially liked Giambologna's stuff, including his Portrait of a Lady - we also spent much time marvelling at the carved ivory. There were intricately carved panels with such small details that you wonder how it was all put together. Another favorite was a chess board built with ivory inlay and with a backgammon board on the back. The craftsmanship was amazing. Unfortunately, we are finding that many of the museums here have a very strict 'no pictures' policy. While we always have the museum guide from the gift shop, it means our loyal blog followers will just have to come all the way to Florence to see what we're raving about.
We made our way slowly back to the hotel doing some window shopping as well as some of the more expensive kind. We purchased some great purple golf shirts with Florence's fleur-de-lis emblem at a Fiorentina store, enjoyed a paper making demonstration at an artisan shop and thoroughly enjoyed the sunny afternoon.
We got back to our hotel for a quick clean up and in time for the very helpful concierge to make us a dinner reservation at a local restaurant called Buca Mario. Before dinner we went out onto the piazza to the wine bar in front of the hotel and spent a wonderful couple of hours discovering two new favourites - a totally rich, delicious, devilishly-good red wine called Brunello di Montalcino (we spent way too much on a bottle of the 1999, but if you find any Brunello in even years - 02, 04 or 06 - you should be right as rain) and manna from heaven in the form of pizzetta, small strips of thin focaccia, covered with herbs, olive oil, garlic and a little bit of tomato sauce. Combine it all with a pleasant seat on a sunshiny piazza and you have the Tuscan heaven you come to Firenze to find.
Buca Mario was a hit as well, later that night. Highlights included the rigatoni primo platti, the veal and aspargus, and, of course, the tiramisu. We ended up chatting most of the evening with a really nice couple from North Carolina, as it seems the restaurant seated all English speaking people together in one corner of the establishment. The streets were just as inviting in the moonlight afterwards as they were in the sunshine before and we did a few turns in the piazza to walk off the dinner before turning in for the night - exhausted but well pleased with our first full day in Florence. If the rest are like this, it's going to be a trip to remember.
