Florence (Saturday 17th August 2013)

Today we visited the capital of Tuscany and one of the world's art and fashion capitals. By 7:30am we were on th road, without any breakfast :( , driving the back-way to Arezzo. We had decided to park the card in Arezzo and catch a train rather than try to park in Florence. After a brief struggle finding a park and understanding how the ticket dispensing machine worked we brought our train ticket via the Trenitalia machine (easy peasy) and boarded the train. The journey took about 95 minutes, stopping at a number of stations along the way. The bits of the scenery I saw was typical Tuscany. For most of the journey I saw the inside of my eyelids, nit trying to fight the urge to sleep. I think Kerry caught a few Zzzzzz's also.

We arrived at Florence Santa Maria Nuova (the main station) and with the help of GPS-girl found our way to a nearby Bar for some breakfast and then onto the market at Piazza San Lorenzo. Not much there other than people selling imported (Made in Italy) handbags and the like. We decided to buy our Florence souvenirs from a more genuine vendor of imported “Made in Italy” goods later. We bought a map, 'cos GPS-girl was getting hot and going to run out of steam, and headed deeper into town.

The Duomo is a very impressive, huge building of red, white, green and black marble. The facade of the cathedral is incredibly ornate which is almost polar opposite to the interior. In fact there are three buildings in the piazza. A small (that's a relative term) chapel in the front of the piazza, the cathedral and a few meters away but standing as a separate building, the bell-tower. The queue into the church was long and the queue to climb the dome even longer so we left with a view to coming back later.

Time for a refreshment. We chose a cafe in Piazza di Duomo named Scuderia. If it's related to the mob who are the primary sponsors of the Ferrari F1 team I know why they can afford to be so. Two normal 200ml glasses of Coke cost 12 euros! We drank our Coke, voiced our displeasure, as had the group who were leaving when we arrived, and left vowing to bag this cafe in this blog. There. Done!

The other market in Florence where all the tourists go is the Mercato Nuova. It's housed in an large, square, arched, open building and is jam packed with stall-holders and their goods. Kerry had anticipated being at this market to buy some scarves on the advice of one of her friends from craft. I think it was Julie, but I could be wrong. Anyway, this is scarf heaven and Kerry didn't miss the opportunity of being there. She bought a number for all the seasons I think. Meanwhile, I went off in search in a new belt, which I found and had adjusted on the spot, and a money clip, which I have been searching for for seven weeks. Rather than carry my wallet in my back pocket (a real no-no) I keep my wallet and our passports locked deep away in the middle section of my quality IBM back-pack (thanks David) and carry the back-pack everywhere we go. Cash I keep in the front, left-pocket of my shorts. So now that I finally have my money-clip the notes will be much neater and less likely to fall out. The clip is leather with in-sewn strong magnets to hold the notes in place. It has the world “Firenze” and the city's Coat of Arms embossed on it so it is a functional souvenir – the only sort to buy!

In the hot sun we walked to the famous Ponte Vecchio across the River Arno. The bridge is famous as it has shops on either side for its entire length hanging precariously above the water of the river. If one did not know this one would think it just a continuation of the street on dry-land. The shop-keepers on the bridge are predominantly vendors of jewelery. We looked but didn't touch!

On the other side we stopped for lunch and little cafe inside an arcade. It cool and comfortable and pretty cheap. We have cottoned onto the idea that if eating pizza buy one and share it. Italians only know about very large pizza. The concept of small or medium must be an Australian thing. Also sparkling mineral water in cheap and refreshing as a drink instead of always drinks soft-drinks (or beer or vino). Kerry passed a shop which sold antique-looking model Vespas so she bought one to go on my desk at home. OK, not a functional souvenir but it will remind me everyday of this holiday..... and the next one.

Given that we were in the birthplace of the Renaissance we thought we might like to visit the Uffizi museum. It was already past 3:00pm and the queue was 90 minutes long so we opted not to visit and closing time was only three hours away. Through Piazza della Signoria to see the full size replica of Michelangelo's “David” and a number of other sculptures in what must be the world's largest public display of the male genitalia!

In the very late 15^th century a monk called Savonarola got effective control of Florence. He didn't like the flowering Renaissance so ordered all the books, writings and fine art of the city to be burned in the Piazza della Singoria; known as the “Bonfire of the Vanities”. Shortly afterwards the Florentines grew tired of his penitential sermons and his handy-work of a year earlier so they captured him and burned him on the exact, same spot. I love the sense of irony.

Not far away is the Piazza di Duomo where we started our Florentine travels. We visited the inside of the Cathedral. Huge in length and breadth, a magnificent marble floor, rather austere on the walls and ceiling except for the wonderful, massive dome entirely filled with scenes from the old and new testament and other things of the artist's imagination.

Being a good Roman Catholic church there was not entry fee and, therefore, no queue to speak of. There was still a very long queue to climb the dome, plus a fee of 10 euros. We left the church and found ourselves next to the bell-tower, with no queue at all. Kerry had summoned up the courage to climb the 400-odd steps to the top. We paid our 10 euros and started to climb. It was very hard work, with high steps and a very narrow stair-case. Unlike is Siena there were no restrictions of the number of concurrent climbers so it became rather congested in parts as equal numbers of people were going up and down. There are about four large landings on the tower where one could take a breather and temporarily relief from the claustrophobic world on the wider, straight but longer stair-cases and the shorter but narrower spiral sections.

To Kerry's credit she overcame the strong urge to give in and stop short of the top and battled through the fear to reach the summit where a fantastic view of Florence was presented to all those who made the difficult climb. Oh, we looked directly across to all the people at the top of the dome, just 50m away, who had waited for an hour or more to do get the same view. Suffer! The climb down was hard, for my dodgy knees. At the bottom of the tower, in the gift shop, I bought Kerry a fridge magnet to remind her daily of her heroic climb.

We badly needed a frozen drink so we got one from a nearby bar. They wanted to charge four euros for a small one and seven to sit at one of their tables to enjoy it. No thanks. We got two anyway, I offered a note for payment and the waiter said, “Pay inside”. So I went in with mine, Kerry stayed outside with hers, and only paid for one! Suffer!

It was past 5:30pm so we headed to the station, via Piazza Santa Maria Novella with it church with a lovely marble facade and the Ferrari shop. I got a few smirks from the sales assitants and the realised I was wearing my Renault F1 cap. Kerry took some photos of me and cap in front of the 2003 model Ferrari F1 machine. I resisted the urge to buy a set of genuine ex-F1 machine valves for 450 euros or a crankshaft for 3800 euros.

Back at the station our train was canceled but was rescheduled to run at a later time. So we waited, eventually getting back to Arezzo just after 9:00pm. GPS-girl lead us out of Arezzo with no problems this time because I chose a destination town that would force her to go in the general direction I wanted to go. Half-way up the mountain we came across a celebration in one of the small villages. It turned out that today was day they were celebrating the Italian unification.

The park was full of locals eating, singing, dancing and drinking in the outdoors under the trees. It was a excellent sight. We were in need of something to eat so we stopped. With some wonderful help from the locals we got a table and a meal served. We were the only non-locals there amongst the hundreds of revelers. For twelve euros we got bread, a very large pizza, a very large Coke and red wine. We both thought “glass of wine”. No, wrong. Bottle of wine – a 2011 drop from the local area. What a shame I still had 30kms of winding roads to drive.

We ate, drank and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves in this brief but genuine interlude with the Tuscan people of this region. Driving through Caprese we found one of the bars open at 11:45pm and really jumping. Once again, eating, drinking and dancing were in full swing. We stopped for a cappuccino to finish off a great day and arrived home home just after midnight.