Day 9: Rome - FlorenceAuthor: jawapro
Date: Fri 30/01/2009 05:22 PM
Today was nice - but one of the less exciting days of the tour - so this post will be shorter.
We drove from Rome back up the road we’d taken a few days ago on the way down, and stopped at the same ‘services’ for lunch. I was listening to an audio book on my mp3 player, and seemed to miss some of the story - so I probably fell asleep for a while.
We left our previous tracks, and drove to Florence.
Florence is a rather pretty town - but still very Italian and insane.
Florence was the home of three of the Ninja Turtles (Leondardo, Michalengalo, and Donatello). While here, the Turtles did lots of arty things that can still be seen. One of the most famous is a naked statue that’s supposed to be of King David (the guy who killed Goliath). The statue itself is in a museum we didn’t have time to see, but there’s a copy on display in the square where the original stood before they moved it. Unfortunately, the copy was being renovated and covered by a scaffold and this screen. So we didn’t see the real or fake David. Not that we cared overly - it’s just a naked dude.
Florence is famous for it’s Leatherwork. We watched a demonstration (from an American?) in one of the leather places - and took a look at the ridiculously priced leather products.
It’s also famous for it’s jewelry - a lot of which is sold on shops on this historic bridge. A law was passed sometime in the distant past that said that the only shops allowed on the bridge were those that sold gold and silver jewelry - and that’s still the case today. More interestingly, this bridge was also special to Hitler. Apparently he’d visited once, and gave orders not to destroy it - so it was the only bridge across the river that the Nazi’s didn’t destroy.
Yet another famous old church - the Duomo. This one was actually pretty sweet though.
The inside is much more simple than that of the Vatican - and in my opinion, much more attractive because of it.
The Dome in this church was the first dome in Europe apparently - and is very impressive. It’s huge - and you can climb all the way to the top - if you have 15 minutes to spend each direction.
The paintings on this dome predate the Vatican - as this was the model the Vatican was based on. And to my way of thinking, this puts the Sistine Chapel to shame. The photos really don’t do it justice.
Check out this ancient clock that was built with the church. It’s a 24hr clock, but the days clock over at about 5pm our time - dusk. Operates by weights apparently.
We had a walking tour that explained some of the status around the place. This one is a guy killing Medusa (Snake Hair Lady). The interesting things to note is that the face of the lady is actually the artists girlfriend (was he trying to make a point here?).
Also - the back of the guys helmet (including the wings) hides another face - a self portrait of the author! Now, that’s just cool.
For a land obsessed with Smart Cars - here is a Smart Bus. It’s tiny!
So cute!
Not cute. You’d think if you were driving a car this ugly - you’d at least choose a more subtle colour.
Tonight most of the tour went out to a restaurant (optional extra) and are going to the "Space Electronic" disco. We decided to skip both - and have something cheap for tea, and then hit the hay. We got lost looking for tea, but made it back after finding a supermarket.
We’ve been tired right since we left Australia, so we’ll get a little extra sleep tonight.
Tomorrow - Switzerland!
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