Florence was a cool town, cobble stoned streets, fascinating architecture and enough gelato stores to create an obesity epidemic. It lies on the banks of the Arno river which has a bunch of cool bridges on it.
It is home to a lot of stuff but like all Italian towns, it has to have the requisite big church, this one called the Duomo. It is kind of the tourist central of the city. Apparently, it was designed by some guy I'd never heard of and worked on by 50,000,000 artists over a hundred years. You line up for hours to get inside and you know what, it ain't all that. Yeah, its big but when did size matter really. So here's my Florence tip: as soon as you see it, you'll want to look inside but ditch the Duomo, there's better churches to see. Just look at these two photos and that's all you need.
My second Duomo tip: there are these gates with amazing sculptured gold panels on them depicting bible stories. The truth of the matter is that the real ones are not on the Church but in the Duomo Museum which hardly anyone goes to. So just another reason to skip the church and head for the museum.
The Museum also contains one of Michelangelo's final sculptures which he was going to have erected on his tombstone. Apparently, he wasn't happy with it so he broke the legs and arm in a fit of rage and never finished it. Really. Anyhow, he modeled the guy at the back on himself so that's what he kind of looked like.
Also featured: Donatello's freaky wooden sculpture of Mary...
...who has to spend eternity looking at a freaky sculpture of Christ...
...as well as this amazingly realistic depiction of a drunk guy...
...and ancient Streetfighter - FIGHT!
Strangely, for a conservative Catholic country there is an awful lot of nudity in their sculptures and it seems that all depictions of ancient Italy involve some form of free loving nakedness. Put your willies away and go back to woodstock you hippies...
Pro wrestling in ye olde Italy was not fake like the WWF. This scuplture shows an ancient naked dick grabbing shoulder throw which looks kind of painful.
The most famous naked guy on earth, Michelangelo's David was actually booked up for the entire time we were in Florence (who ever heard of a Museum being sold out?). Not content with the replica in the centre of town (arse shown above) we then went to David's Leather Factory instead... grrr tiger!
Italians perpetually wear sunglasses, look cool and strut down the street. Its just the done thing so Ruth and I tried to emulate it. However, when I started to strut, Ruth pointed out that I looked ridiculous even though I thought I was hawt!
We also went to the Uffizi gallery which has a bunch of famous artworks by Botticelli, da Vinci, Michelangelo (dude was prolific), Raphael, Durer, Caravaggio, Rembrandt as well as some other guys. Sadly no pictures allowed so you'll have to content yourself with the statue of Macchiavelli which was outside. He wrote a book once.
Part of the joy of Italy was the food. This is a picture of Ruth chowing down at our favourite cheap pasta place we found in a food market. Not shown: legs of proschiutto the size of small children hanging from the butchers around the corner. They looked meatalicious...
I loved Florence but every time I went to sleep, I had this feeling I was being watched...
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