Florence, the historical archenemy of Milan, is much prettier and also, quite a bit more crowded than the latter. A really great attribute of the city is its condensed historical center where palaces, statues, and marble cathedrals abound, in a mostly pedestrian area. The train station is just a 10-minute walk from the Duomo, the most prominent cathedral of the city and its most famous landmark.
And from the Duomo, it is a 10 to 15 minute walk to almost every landmark in the city – and yet, somehow, we walked for hours each day!
The Duomo is an imposing cathedral made of polychromatic marble – pink, white, and green –, which give it a distinctively cheerful look. It is squeezed into a relatively small square compared to its size, and getting a nice photo of it was a real challenge… not to mention the construction that was also happening on a portion of the dome.
Compared to the rich marble decorations on the outside, we were surprised to see that the interior of the Duomo was rather plain… not even a bit of marble on the walls or some oversized Michelangelo frescoes! ☺
The second most prominent building in Florence is the Medici fortress. It somewhat resembles the Sforza fortress in Milan, although a bit smaller and with higher fortified walls. Unlike the Duomo, the Medici fortress is fronted by a large square, which has its share of art with many statues, including a copy of the famous David of Michelangelo – it was the closest we would get to the real thing, which is hidden away in a gallery assaulted every day by too many tourists.
That was actually the only real disappointment I had in Florence: the line of tourists outside good museums was horrendous. Many works by the famous Florentine artists - Michelangelo, Botticelli, da Vinci, Raphael to name just a few – are at the Uffizi Gallery, where it appeared people wasted half a day just waiting to get to the museum entrance… so we just walked by.
While we stayed in Florence, we also went to visit a couple of neighboring towns. We went first, by train, to Pisa, just an hour away from Florence. The town is much smaller and more laid back than Florence, until you reach the enormous square where seats the Leaning Tower…
The Leaning Tower doesn’t seat by itself but is in fact only just the bell tower of yet another really beautiful Italian cathedral. The cathedral, its baptistry, and bell tower are all made of white marble sculpted in hundreds of arches and statues; and they seat surrounded with large green lawns, for a very stunning view.
Tourists apparently mostly flock to the Leaning Tower (although only a select few can go up on it) by tour bus and don’t even bother with the rest of the town, which indeed seems a bit small for such grand architecture! We enjoyed the small streets of the town though, and the stop for a most excellent gelato!
