Sunset at the Piazzale Michelangelo - August 11, 2010

Wednesday August 11, 2010

Senne's Summary: Took the train to Florence. Had a great walk where we had a preview of all the sights to see in Florence. Enjoyed a beautiful music-filled sunset from the Piazzale Michelangelo.

We took the train to Florence this morning. Only one train, what a treat! We had reserved seats, room for our baggage and two nice girls from Australia who were our seatmates. The time passed quickly as we chatted with them. The only downside was the guy across the aisle.

Life tip - this is not a travel tip, this is for EVERYONE! Use deodorant. SERIOUSLY!!!!

When we arrived in Florence we had a few tries to find the apartment… the instructions started with, 'when you come out of the train station turn right.’ We clearly came out the wrong door… then the first left turn had two different road names, the one we were given was the teeny tiny print...

Steve finally figured it out (imagine if I was alone… I’d just sleep in train stations!) and we found our apartment which is very centrally located.

I was a little worried about this one as the original apartment we booked suddenly became unavailable as of last week (serious drainage problems), so the lady we are renting from rented us her "partner’s apartment". You just never know what you are going to end up with… it’s not the nicest place we’ve stayed, but it’s definitely clean, central and has a clean bathroom and even a kitchen.

The most interesting thing about the apartment is the TV channels! There are over 400 channels. The last 200 (approximately, I didn’t look at every single one) are phone sex channels in every language you can imagine (except English). Let’s just say the ladies doing the advertising are… interesting.

There is the “Betting Channel” which Steve thought would be a good one, because when he first flipped through there was a Poker Main Event on. When he came back to it there was a program about how to fill out the little slips to buy lotto tickets…. I suspect it’s a bit of hit and miss on this channel 😀

There was also an “Armenian” channel that had two guys on it. My favourite part was when they flashed the word “Nostalgic” across the screen and then flashed back to the two of them in a dingy kitchen… one of them wearing a long wig dressed up as a lady. I think this was suppose to be funny… I guess it kinda was 😉

Then we found an English Channel. Yay! Turns out it’s a Church Channel with Pastor Dave. Pass.

I think the channel we’ll watch the most is the Music Channel. It has English Top 40 Music Videos… Rihanna, Lady Gaga, etc. The best part is the subtitles at the bottom. This afternoon Steve sang me “Whaddya Want From Me” by Adam Lambert in a language which we both believe to be Polish. It was actually quite entertaining!

We decided to head out and do our regular wandering in the streets. At first glance, we were thinking that whoever said Florence was the prettiest city in the world was daft… they have a serious graffiti problem… and our neighbourhood isn’t that pretty. 

(Note added 4 days later: To be fair our street is the ugliest/scariest street I saw in all of Florence. There were many nice streets.)

Here's a beautiful door we found on our walk!

We walked down to check out the line at the Accademia where the statue of David is. It was a little long (100 people perhaps). Steve asked the doorman about the reservations, because the people in the reservation line were going straight in. The guy said if we buy tickets at another museum we can buy them with a reservation, so we decided to do that tomorrow.

Then we continued walking and stumbled upon the cathedral with the Duomo. Wow! We were suitably impressed just by the size. As it was late in the day we couldn’t go in the cathedral (I wasn’t appropriately dressed anyway!), and the line for the Duomo was LOOOOOONG. Add that to our list of things to do another day.

We walked all the way around the Duomo and Steve took some photos. (The little tiny pink dot is me!)

Can you spot me in my bright pink shirt?

I could hear some music in the background and see a large group of people at the end of the street.

Steve, who is apparently more in the know then me, told me it was the Hare Krishna’s. It was! I have a few questions… What is their belief? Why are there no girls? What do they hope to accomplish by dancing in the streets and singing? How do they get money to live? Being Internet-less is annoying… I can always count on the Internet to answer my burning questions! I guess the answers to my questions will have to wait four more days…that’s when we are in Siena and have Internet once again. Whatever their belief system, they weren’t hurting anyone and seem to be all smiles while they dance all over the city.

After watching them for a while we carried on down the street to the Palazzo del Vecchio (my spelling is probably off for a lot of things, because I can’t check on the Internet!). We thought it was a giant cathedral… turns out it use to be a private Medici residence! Holy! Rich people really flaunted their wealth during the Renaissance didn’t they??

 Outside the Palazzo was this really cool place with giant statues. I can’t really describe it, but don’t worry, Steve took pictures! I just sat back and looked at the statues and watched the people while Steve took the photos. Instead of having the “no photo” people here, there were two guys working whose job it was to say, “Don’t touch, DON’T TOUCH!”

After a while we continued down the street to the Ponte de Vecchio. This is a bridge kind of like the Rialto Bridge in Venice. It was covered in shops. Not really sure why the bridge is so famous… I don’t have a guide book for Florence 😀

Since we were already at the bridge and it was evening I thought it might be a good night to walk up to the Piazzale de Michaelangelo where you can see excellent views of Florence, particularly at sunset. The view from the top was amazing! Steve took lots of photos and I sat on the steps taking it all in. A two-man band came and played some jazzy/soulful music while people just sat on the steps waiting for the sunset and enjoying the view. I think that experience is going to be one of the beautiful moments that stays in my head for a long time.

Here are just a few photos. You need to come see it for yourself... the photos don't do it justice!

After the sun sets and the musicians stop playing we walk home in the dark, and shockingly find our apartment no problem! (Steve even let me be in charge of the map!!!)

This is me trying to hurry Steve along. "You have enough photos. Let's go!
If we don't find our apartment before it gets dark, we'll never find it!"