World Wide Weldens: Florence, Italy

We arrived in Livorno, Italy and took a 2 and a half hour bus trip to Florence!! Here we go. Florence is located in an area that many of you are familar with only if just by it's region name, TUSCANY!! Florence is located about midway down the "boot" of Italy, nearer the western coast. There are rollings hills, groves of cypress trees and spectacular views wherever you turn your head. Florence is called the city of the lily and gave birth to the Renaissance and changed the way people see the world. For centuries, it has captured the imagination of travelers from all over. People who want to walk in the footsteps of Dante, Donatello, Botticelli, Galileo Galilei and Michelangelo. There is art of all sorts on every corner. The city streets are narrow and wonderful. Getting lost is fun. No matter where you end up it is a beautiful street with wonderful restaurants, museums, churches, stores, artisits...you name it. Florence is called Firenze in Italian and we did our best to speak our newly aquired southern accent Italian on all the local Firenzens we found!! Oddly enough, one person we found was not from Firenze at all, she was from Birmingham,Alabama!!! What a small world. You won't believe this one. You need to know that Florence produces some of the best wine and best olive oil in the world. I hope you get some!

Her she is! We were on a walking tour with people from our ship, about 25 of us, and we were walking down one of the hundreds of narrow streets when all of a sudden I saw a familiar face in the crowd! I just blurted out "MEG", and she look up startled that someone might know her!! It was Meg North, our travel agent at home with Brownell Travel that worked with us for months to help us plan this world cruise! How weird was that!! It is a small world after all for sure! We gave her big hugs and had time for one quick picture so our tour didn't leave us in the lurch! Meg, I hope you see this and know how much fun it was to run into you and we are on the last "leg" of the trip and still having a trip of a lifetime! Thank you for all your helpo. AND thank you for following us all the way to Florence to make sure we were okay!! What a great travel agent!!!

Rolling hills. And these are called umbrella trees. They are all over the place in Tuscany. Beautiful.

Duomo. This is the cathedral in Florence and it's presence is seen for miles around because of this magnificent dome. It is the symbol of Florence much like the Eiffel Tower is to Paris. The people of Florence are very proud of this dome, and cathedral. The Florentine phrase for "homesick" is nostalgia del cupolone ( homesick for the dome)! How about that!! Two shots of inside the cathedral that were wonderful. The 24 hour clock. Look at that. I hope you can see in the photo that the clock is in roman numerals and is on military time. I don't know that another one exists.

The David. When Michelangelo created this statue, there was not "plan" of any kind. No "cast". No drawings. He believed that inside every piece of marble was a masterpiece waiting to come out. This is how David was created. Infortunately, 3 years ago, the museum, Galleria dell Accademia, which houses The David, stopped allowing photographs of the statue. Fortunately, for you,in the Piazza della Signoria, there is an almost flawless replica, done by a group of students, many years ago. This one has to face the elements and the pigeons, but it is beautiful and we have a picture here for you. This darkened photo is of the inside of the dome of the cathedral. It was magnificent.

This steeple was just a shot I took walking down a narrow street to show you anywhere you turn in this town, you see beauty.

Also in Piazza della Signoria are several other famous statues, and bronzes. It was in this place that in 1497, the famous "bonfires of the vanities" took place, when the fanatical friar Savonarola induced his followers to hurl their worldly goods into the flames. Cellini's famous brinze, Pereus, holding the severed head of Medusa is the most important sulpture here. Plus, the Hercules and the Centaur, works of Giambologna.

Kathleen found out about the Ponte Vecchio, and off she went. You can see it in the background here. The bridge was built in 1345, and housed the butchers, grocers, blacksmiths and other merchants of that time. But in 1593, the Medici grand duke Ferdinand I, whose private corridor linking the Medici palace with the Medici offices, crossed atop these shops on the bride, decided he did not like the likes of these peasants to be beneath his walkway and did not like the smell! So he threw them all out and installed 41 goldsmiths and 8 jewelers. The bridge has been devoted to these two trades ever since!!

Nicholas saw a "flock" of Italian nuns and thought he'd like a picture with them!

This is an important picture for everyone who is celebrating Space Week this week in Alabama! This is the tomb of Galileo Galilei!! Looking at it, on the left the image is to depict Astronomy, the image above the tomb is a bust of Galileo and the image to the left is to depict Geometry! He is buried in the church of Santa Croce, along with another very famous man, you will see here.

Here is a closeup of the plaque next to Galileo's tomb.

Another shot of Galileo's tomb with Kathleen and Nicholas out in front celebrating Space Week!!!

I HATE that this phot is not better. However, this is the tomb of Michalangelo. His tomb is directly across from the tomb of Galileo's in the back of the church, that actually when I was her 15 years ago, was the front of the church. Back then you did not have to pay to come into the church, now you do and they rerouted it so the tombs of these greats are at the end of the tour!

The outside of the church of Santa Croce. It was a clear beautiful day.

Nicholas found a lady that had something in her store that he spent his whole trip money that his Uncle Edgar gave him! He was very happy as you can see here!

Kathleen thinks she can make enough money playing her guitar on the street with this accordian dude to buy jewelry on the gold bridge????

Kathleen and the gold bridge, Ponte Vecchio. After the bridge was turned into a gold mine so to speak, it was in grave danger during WWII. It is the only bride in Florence to survive the bombings of the Germans in WWII.