We are in Florence. Well, shoot. . . .
It is truly a lovely city. (So is its name in Italian: Firenze.) We drove straight to Camping Michelangelo (!) from Casina with no detours or problems. The campground is quite large and spills down the hillside on the south bank of the Arno River, overlooking the city. Quite a remarkable view. It is just about full, even though we are weeks away from the beginning of the official “high season.”
Since we expect to be here for a few days, we emptied our tanks and filled up with fresh water before we settled ourselves. But we soon discovered an electrical problem: we kept blowing the circuit breaker on the outlet pole we were plugged in to, even when we had shut off everything electrical. A neighbor told us we had only 2 amps of service! (Could it be that our converter/charger’s attempts to recharge the batteries were drawing too much current?) We finally saw the campground guy who had directed us to our site and asked him if there was a solution. He showed us another site 50 feet away where there was 10 amps. We first tried to string another cable but didn’t have enough of the necessary adapters, so we just packed everything up and moved Rover to the new site, which solved the problem. (We had actually begun to look for alternative camping sites, with all the navigation problems that would entail, so we were really relieved that it turned out OK.)
This is a great location. It is about a 20 minute walk into the city center (first up the hill in the campground and then down the hill to the city (David counted 500 steps of the latter). Fortunately there is a bus that lets us avoid walking back up those 500 steps at the end of the day and drops us off right at the campground gate and then it is all downhill to Rover.
Sunday we walked into the city, reserved our museum tickets for Tuesday and Wednesday and just walked around absorbing Florence’s ambiance. It is a very well kept and lively city, with lots of open plazas and narrow streets. During the Renaissance the wealthy tried to outdo each other in building extravagant palaces, most of which are now museums or exposition halls. Only taxis, tiny buses and bicycles are allowed in the city center. It is full of gelato (ice cream) shops--even more than pizzerias--sometimes two or three on the same block. The Ponte Vecchio was a disappointment, however. Every shop on this covered bridge was an expensive jewelry shop--every single one: very boring and unimaginative. Florence is known for its leather work, and Susan not only wishes she needed expensive Italian leather shoes, but possibly a purse or jacket to match. It is gorgeous stuff.
Because all the museums were closed on Monday, we went to churches instead. It is hard to beat Santa Croce. This is where the really famous Italians (those who were not popes) are buried: Galileo, Fermi, Machiavelli, Rossini, and Michelangelo himself, to name a few. It is a huge and beautiful place filled with paintings, sculptures and monuments to everyone. We also visited the cathedral, which is even bigger than Santa Croce, but doesn’t have nearly the claim to fame, except for its painting of the Last Judgement on its massive dome.
A flood had covered much of the area in 1966 to about chest height. Many places have the level permanently marked on their walls. So the city has recently been cleaned and repaired. Damage is not at all evident except in the case of some of the paintings and the like that have been moved to museums for safe keeping.
On Tuesday we went to the Accademia Museum to see Michelangelo”s David--17 feet tall and wonderfuly positioned at the end of a long gallery. (To get close to it, you walk past at least ten tour groups, each with a guide declaiming in a different language.) We had followed the advice of our Lonely Planet guide and reserved tickets ahead of time, so we didn’t have to wait in line at all. As you move down the corridor toward David, you pass by four other unfinished Michaelangelo statues with figures emerging from the marble. The museum also has a unique collection of 500-year-old musical instruments because of the interest of one of the Medici rulers of the city.
Finally, on Wednesday we had tickets to the Uffizi, known as Italy’s greatest art museum. It is a huge and impressive gallery, and it is easy to be surprised by some of the originals we saw there: some of Michelangelo’s, da Vinci’s, Botticelli’s, and even a couple of Rembrandt’s. We also appreciated that there was much written description in English. However, we have seen enough versions of the Virgin Mary with Baby Jesus to last us a lifetime, and probably enough crucifixion scenes as well (although we’re sure to get another dose of both in Germany). Photographs were not allowed in either museum, which really helps to keep people moving instead of posing for endless pictures.
Later in the day, we actually found a smaller sculpture museum more enjoyable than the overwhelmingly large one. Early in the afternoon, between the two, a little rain cooled us off when we were not prepared for it, but as soon as it stopped the plazas were again full of picture-taking people again. But the rain held off long enough for us to catch the bus to the top of the hill and the campground. And once again we are grateful Rover is not a tent.