Artists haven - Florence

Having left the canals of Venice, we found ourselves in the artists haven (or should I say heaven?) - Florence. The map we had printed out was dead on, and a few streets from Florence station we found Hotel Florence Room. Nice, and they serve breakfast in your room....sweet!!!

We spent the first day aimlessly wandering the streets...this is the first of two loong stops...each for 4.5 days. No need to rush. We found a lovely restaurant that gave us great food at a nice low price. Fed and ready to roll, we headed out to discover the city. We headed to the famous bridge - Ponte Vecchio. We will have photos online soon, but suffice to say, it is bursting with shops and looks like an overfull cupboard, bursting at the seams. Chock-a-block full of residents, tourists and vendors, Florence reminds both of us of any major city in India. People have no issues pushing past you and there is a lot of friendliness in everything....forget about "personal space" - it no exist here!!

Italy is my favourite country in Europe because it is such a sensory overload - sights, smells, sounds...wow. A bit like home I guess. We walked around the bridge and then ambled to the first of several majestic structures we would see here - Palazzo Vecchio. Like some buildings in Europe, they are taking advantage of the low season and doing some renovations. Oh well, there was still plenty to see. Huge majestic old statues dominate the square and we see amazing likenesses to Hercules (how one would imagine him) and several other mythical folk. M discovers her favourite statue - odd becuase it is called "Rape of the Sabine Woman". We later found out that this was just a fictional scene. The artist wanted to construct a statue that would look different from each side and so created this great statue with 3 figures (look it up on Google). That made M feel better about it, as the name had sent a look of dismay onto her face earlier :)

The squares seem to be home to numerous open-air concerts. One side hosts a young teenage band that is screeching some noise and torturing their guitars in an attempt at rock. At least THEY were having fun. :) Another side of the same square had something more fun. A marching bad...I love marching bands...i really do. They played some high spirited stuff, with some important looking older dudes standing around. Everyone had this old hat with a huge feather from some exotic bird in it. Once done, they bounced off...yes bounced, not jogged, not marched, not walked...bounced, i say. They bounced off to another square and could be heard repeating their performance again. The amazing thing is that pigeons in Florence (of which there are many) seemed to fly to the tone of the band...amazing! Someone want to try this trick with the pigeons in Bombay?

The next few days found us visiting the Galleria Accademia to see Michelangelo's David....easily one of the most awesome statues anywhere. We then went to Palazzo Pitti with its sprawling Boboli gardens. We spent quite a few hours here. We also had invested in some drawing material. This meant that we both put them to good use in the huge gardens...painting the Neptune statue, peacocks and the garden itself. That was a great afternoon....a little cloudy but not tooo cold, and not too many people in the gardens...have I mentioned how great low-season is? ;-)

Days of observing art, gulping down yummy Capuccinos and Ciocollatas (hot choc) and eating pasta have left the body confused. We surely cant walk any more and yet could not eat any more either...talk about extremes of everything!

We spent one morning even climbing to the very top of the magnificent dome and what a lovely view greeted us. Florence remains unchanged with red-tile roofs and no structures over 4 stories (except ancient castles and towers)...quite the same way it must have looked 100s of years ago when the dome was first built. We highly recommend it to anyone who wishes to see a city still very much in its original glory.

One evening we walked the 1/2 hr uphill to Piazza Michelangelo that gives a lovely view of the entire city. Having spent an hour so in deep conversation (somethings remain between a husband and wife ;-)), we headed down. But wait a min....where is M's bag? The money, credit cards, IDs...shit, damn....run dammit run... We run back but there is nothing anywhere... M runs frantically to one side, HK to the other. Finally, M hits the jackpot...a kind store owner had seen a pickpocket trying to make off with it and had snagged it. He had kept it in case we came back. God bless that man! Breathe again....

Enough excitment..we decided to take it a Saturday night mass in the famous Duomo of Florence. It was awesome...the lovely dome and the echoes of the session...very nice indeed!

One day was spent at Pisa, but that is worthy of a posting of its own....

-Hari