Boboli Gardens
The Boboli Gardens are found at the Pitti Palace in Florence. There are two entrance tickets when you arrive at the Pitti Palace; one for the Palace and the other for the garden. We only bought the ticket for the gardens but if we would have had more time I would have liked to have gone back to visit the museum within the palace.
It took us a good 2-3 hours to walk through the Boboli Gardens because it is the size of a park and there is a lot to see. Besides the beautiful greens and buildings in the gardens, we also got to see many sculptures dating anywhere from 16th to 18th century. I absolutely loved the gardens and would make it a high priority stop for anyone visiting Florence.
By far the funniest statue we saw while in Italy.
"You sir, please fetch my turtle for me to sit on while you sculpt me."
Ponte Vecchio Golden Bridge
The Ponte Vecchio Golden Bridge is a medieval bridge over the Arno River. It is famous for a couple of reason. 1. it has shops built along it, as was once common. The shops are mostly filled with jewelers and art dealers. 2. In 1593 the Medici Grand Dukes built a corridor above the bridge to create prestige for those who crossed above, typically royalty, those who had to cross the bridge on it's normal level. 3. The bridge was built to connect Florence's town hall with the Pitti Palace.
The David
Even though there are fake "The David's" around Florence none of them were as magnificent as the original. Michelangelo's statue of David, standing at 14 feet and 3 inches, was incredible. The details of the statue were perfectly lifelike. The David was sculpted to be part of a series of statues of prophets positioned along the roof line of the Florence Cathedral but instead it was placed in a public square outside of Florence's civic government building to symbolize the defense of civil liberties. Today The David is found in the Accademia Gallery in Florence.
Fun Fact: the top of the statue's head it slightly flat because Michelangelo ran out of marble.
The Duomo at the Florence Cathedral
The Florence Cathedral is the main church of Florence, Italy. The cathedral is Gothic style and for some reason at night, to us, it looked like a card board cut out. Access to the chapel of the cathedral was free but Alex, one of the girls I was traveling with, and I bought tickets to climb 463 steps in a narrow twisted corridor to the top of the dome. This was so worth it; it was wonderful to see the paintings in the dome, "The Duomo," up close but then to climb to the outside spire and see all of Florence from a bird's eye view was perfect.
Galileo Science Museum
When I think of going to Italy I think of food, art and architecture; science was not even on my radar but The Galileo Science Museum was great and I would recommend it to be on a to do list. We got to see the instruments Galileo invented, the things he discovered and what things he influenced. It was killing me not to get to look through one of his telescopes. It was inspiring to see all of the many things he did by just being curios and daring to think outside of the box.
Ummm... in that jar is Galileo's finger... kind of gross.
Cooking ClassFor one of our evenings in Florence we took a cooking class and learned how to make pizza (the dough from scratch) and gelato. We had so much fun taking this class and it was a big highlight of our trip. We booked the class through Viatour.com but you can also find it at Florence Cooking Classes. It has great reviews on TripAdvsor. The cooking class was small enough that it was easy to ask the instructor questions as well as getting the chance to meet the other participants in the class, which was a blast. Besides our group, there were two groups from New York City, one group from Australia and one lady from Ukraine.
There was one guy from New York that figured out pretty quickly that we were all LDS (probably the fact that we are all from Utah and we all turned down the glass of wine offered by the instructor) and he instantly took an interested in us and spent the night teasing us (in a fun light-hearted way) and asking us questions. He was a fun/interesting fellow and getting to know him and joking around with him was a cherry on top to the class.
At the end of the course we received certificates of "professional" chefs.
We booked a Vespa Tour through the Tuscan Hills near Florence through Viator as well. This also was a fun activity but also a little terrifying. The description of the tour made it sound like it was going to be an easy going ride on country roads but it left out the fact that we started in Florence and had to drive on city streets with Italian drivers; eek! We had to sign a waiver that said we would abide by Italian driving laws as to which one of the girls said, "They have driving laws?!"
The tour included a home cooked meal at a vineyard up in the hills and far out in the distance you could see the city of Florence all lit up. The vineyard and the view were beautiful and quite romantic. Overall I would go on this tour again in a heart beat, I would just have to put on my big city driving pants and be ready to be aggressive because that's how I survived this tour.
The Markets
Markets are in an abundance in Florence and the perfect place to buy yourself, as well as others, some gifts. I loved all the colors and the lively-ness in the markets. Be ready to barter if you want to buy anything.
The Streets of Florence
Again, Florence was our favorite city and just walking around made the experience. It is still a city and so it is busy with people, but not so busy that you miss the character of the city.
In Florence we stayed at Hotel De La Vile and it was only two blocks away from the Ponte Vecchio Bridge and perfect walking distance to all of our attractions. We had shared rooms for this hotel as well but when we went to check-in they asked if we would like to upgrade to the hotel suite for no extra charge. Umm... yeah! We all got to be together in one room with two bathrooms and TWO FLOORS... yeah, that's right, we had stairs in our room.
No comments:
Post a Comment