Firenze

The next morning we made our way to another city wall we intentionally tried to find: today was our day to explore Florence! First time for T and me, but for AM, it was a return to her home away from home- she lived here for a semester when she was in school!



We were all psyched to be there!



We crossed Ponte Vecchio, which is kind of a funny experience- it's really just another street, packed with jewelry shops...



...which fold up into treasure chest-like casings when they're closed...



...and you don't realize until you're halfway across that you're on a bridge! (T, I'm sorry the blog format chopped you off in this photo- click on it, and you'll see the ACTUAL picture!)



The view from here is great...



check out the mountains in the distance!



It's beautiful in the other direction, too!



Here's Ponte Vecchio from the outside, once we'd crossed it.



On this side of the river there was a really nice arcade.



I think T and I have a knack for finding cool arcades in our travels. Here she is in Bern, when she came to visit me in Switzerland in 1999...



...and here she is in Florence in 2007!



The arcade continued along for a few buildings, then we turned to the left and suddenly were in the courtyard of the Uffizi!



The whole courtyard was watched over by a series of famous Florentines:

Dante...



...Alberti...



...and Michelangelo, just to show a few!



All the sculptures were beautifully detailed- you'll have to click on the photos to see them at a larger scale- check out the plans Alberti is holding, and the fabric pattern of Michelangelo's clothing!



We made our way past the replica of David in front of Palazzo Vecchio. This piazza was PACKED with people! AM reminded us both here to keep a close eye on our purses.

And of course...



the Duomo!



The photostitching program I'm trying out is kind of funny- either it doesn't know how to deal with the distortions of 3D perspectives, or I don't know how to tell it to just yet. Either way, this becomes kind of a funky photograph!

Unfortunately we didn't time our trip well, because you can't just wander through the Duomo on Sundays- services are going on. So the architect and the structural engineer went to Florence and didn't get to go up in the dome of the Duomo. Go figure! That's ok- one afternoon in Florence isn't really enough to digest everything anyway! It was nice to walk around and just get a sense of the city. I'll have to go back again someday, and spend a bit more time in Florence, seeing the important sites!

In the meantime I was really enjoying just seeing the exterior!



I think what amazed me was that the exterior is really pink and green! In all the pictures I'd seen, it always looked more black and white- or grey and white.



The detailing is gorgeous.





They're currently doing quite a bit of restoration work on the Duomo, and they haven't finished cleaning the exterior yet.



This is the dirty side- maybe this is why I never knew the cathedral was green and pink!



These are the people doing the restoration:



We also didn't realize until too soon before our trip that if you want to see David you really need to reserve tickets many days in advance- otherwise you could stand all day in line. AM offered to wait in line while T and I wandered around, but we'd hear nothing of it! It's her vacation too! So this was as close as we got to David. But I liked the name of the piazza! :)



We wandered through AM's old neighborhood, stopped at her favorite gelateria, which in the intervening years has been published in too many travel guides so was jam-packed with American tourists! (ah, I can be such a snob! But it's the same in NYC too: a good place is much more enjoyable before everyone tries to go there! It's kind of in keeping with my comments about Asciano not being a tourist town.)

We made our way to the Piazza in front of Santa Croce, AM's favorite church in Florence. There was a little crafts market going on when we were there. Check out the little conical roof just behind it to the right: that's Pazzi Chapel! For the life of me, I could never digest what building it was or where, when I was in school!



Similarly, here's San Miniato across the river!



I think this is why it is so important that architecture students (and architects!) travel: everything we deal with is so physical, and it makes so much more sense when you can see it in person! The context, the setting, the way it is inhabited, the tiny little details and their relationship to one another- it just can't be fully understood from afar.



...just another view across the Arno... but notice the lion's feet on the lamppost! :)

And check this out:



It's a training boat for a crew team!

Wouldn't this be an amazing place to row?!? :)



*sigh*

So that's it. I HAVE to come back to Florence someday! There's far too much I have to see in further detail! :)