Firenze, Part 1

This week, we spent a couple of days in Florence with the whole group.  I don't know what I was expecting, but I ended up enjoying the town far more than I had expected.  It looked like a big city, but was actually very easy to navigate, and the main sights are fairly central.  I took about 200 pictures, so I will try to distill them into a post of just the highlights!  185 or so pictures are up on Shutterfly, as well.

For this first post, I'll just show you what we saw on our first day in Florence.  Our hotel was right by this:



The Duomo of Florence is absolutely amazing.  It's a beautiful Gothic construction, and was the largest church in Europe until the current St. Peter's was built.  The dome was so big, that when they started building, they actually didn't have the technology to build it; however, they trusted that the next generation would.  Eventually it was built, with a completely original technique that has since been lost to time.

[caption id="attachment_1564" align="alignnone" width="645"] The Ponte Vecchi is the only remaining original bridge over the river in Florence. All the others were blown up by the retreating Germans in WWII. Back in the 14th or 15th century, one of the Medicis ordered that only gold shops would remain on the bridge, and that's still the case today - it's shop after shop of beautiful, hideously expensive jewelry. You do get a feel for the medieval town here, though, as the buildings are original as well.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1560" align="alignnone" width="645"] Piazza del something. Repubblica, I think. The only reason I'm including the pictures is because it's where I ate dinner the next night. ;) Sarah and I went to the grocery store, bought bread, cheese, strawberries and juice, and sat in the piazza for an hour or so listening to a trio of musicians. It was a lovely evening.[/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_1583" align="alignnone" width="645"] This is one of the old palaces, I think Medici-built but I'm not sure. There's so much history packed into this town - the great artists of the 15th and 16th centuries like Michelangelo and Fra Angelico, Dante Alighieri, Machiavelli, Galileo, and many other big names. It's like all the liberal arts and history squished together in one city.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1584" align="alignnone" width="645"] More "out on the town" pictures.[/caption]



[caption id="attachment_1586" align="alignnone" width="645"] My favorite part of Italy - the little Marian street shrines. This one caught my attention so I snapped a photo.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1587" align="alignnone" width="645"] Yay, medieval building!  More pictures of this will follow since the balcony of the Uffizzi gallery is right next to it.  I just think it looks cool.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1588" align="alignnone" width="645"] Piazza Signora, which is packed full of statues and replicas of statues. Also random fountains. The Uffizi Gallery, one of the finest art collections in the world, is off of this piazza.[/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_1590" align="alignnone" width="645"] One of the statues - Perseus with Medusa's head, put up by one of the Medicis when they came back and took over Florence again, squashing the 18-year republic. It's quite an expressive statue when you connect it with the Medicis' rule!  That's the Uffizzi gallery behind it.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1591" align="alignnone" width="645"] Cosmo de Medici, one of the big guys.  There's a turtle at the base of the statue, which you can just barely see above the hedge on the left in this picture.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1592" align="alignnone" width="645"] The inside atrium of the civic building of Florence, with its so-called "grotesque"-style walls and ceiling, designed after the Roman house mosaics.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1595" align="alignnone" width="645"] This is Santa Croce, one of the big churches/basilicas of the city. I love Gothic style![/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1596" align="alignnone" width="645"] Dante's tomb![/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1597" align="alignnone" width="645"] Why don't they make pulpits like this any more?[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1598" align="alignnone" width="645"] I know this was painted by somebody significant, but all the names are mixed up in my head. Pretty picture of the Assumption. I do like this era of painting, though.[/caption]



[caption id="attachment_1603" align="alignnone" width="645"] Galileo's tomb in Santa Croce.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1604" align="alignnone" width="645"] Michelangelo's tomb in the same church.  Sorry it's blurry, his was hard to take a picture of for some reason.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1605" align="alignnone" width="645"] And just to round it off, Machiavelli's tomb. Because that's what everyone wants to see on a Friday morning. :)
I'll post more Florence pictures later, but here's a start at least. I took an awful lot, so I want to break it up a bit.[/caption]