Italy Day 3: Venice to Florence

On our third day in Italy, we woke up to a giant storm.  We had a couple hours before we had to catch our train, so we decided to brave the weather and go find a church that wasn't too far from our hotel that we wanted to see.  It was absolutely pouring, and it was quite a maze through the side streets, so we were pretty soaked when we got there.  St. Rocco was a cool church, with lots of amazing art.  We listened to an audio tour about all the paintings.

We got a bit lost going back to our hotel in the huge storm, which got a little stressful since we didn't have a lot of time to spare.  But we eventually made it back, checked out of our hotel, got our luggage, and then practically ran to the train station, which thankfully wasn't too far.  We found our train and even had a few minutes to spare.

On the train ride to Florence we tried to dry out a bit.  I loved watching out the window to see the beautiful Italian countryside.  The weather cleared at first, but by the time we got to Florence we were in the midst of another huge downpour--wind, lightning, thunder and heavy rain.  We had to figure out where our hotel was and then walk a few blocks in the storm.  We were completely drenched by the time we reached our hotel.  We had one umbrella, but it blew inside out within a few seconds of leaving the train station. It was one of those moments where we were very glad we did not have our children with us.

After a while the storm lessened, so we decided to venture out.  We walked the two blocks from our hotel to the stunning Duomo, Florence's cathedral, with Brunelleschi's famous dome.  From there, we took a Renaissance walking tour around Florence.  As part of the audio tour we walked in and around the Duomo and baptistry,  saw the famous bronze doors, walked through the Orsanmichele church, visited the Piazza Vecchio and saw the replica of David in the courtyard, and the Ponte Vecchio Bridge.

The Duomo was spectacular!

The outside was definitely more amazing than the inside.

Adjacent was the baptistry, with Ghiberti's famous bronze doors.  These are a copy--the originals are now in a museum, which we saw another day.

 Here's a close up of one of the panels.  Exquisite work.

The Orsanmichele church had niches with carved statues all around the outside.  Michelangelo came here and studied these statues while longing to create his own.

Statue of St. Mark by Donatello

The alter in Orsanmichele.

Next we walked to the Palazzo Vecchio.  This was the city hall and residence (sometimes) for the ruling Medici family.

 Outside was where the original David statue stood.  This, of course, is a copy now.

We continued our walk to the beautiful Ponte Vecchio (Old bridge).  This bridge, lined with shops, has been here since the 1300s.  Originally housing butchers and tanners, so they could easily toss waste into the river, now the bridge is home to very fine gold and silver shops.  In WWII, all the bridges in Florence were bombed, but an art-loving German consul loved this bridge enough to spare it, instead blowing up buildings on each end so that it was impassible.

The rain finally stopped and we saw this beautiful rainbow over Florence as seen from the center of the Ponte Vecchio.  

We continued our stroll around Florence--thankfully the skies cleared just a bit.  Here is the arch built for the unification of Italy.  This was in a fun square (piazza) with restaurants, a carousel and lots of people.

Next we went and found The Hospital of the Innocents.  This was one of the first children's hospitals in the world and one place that David really wanted to see.  The American Academy of Pediatrics takes its logo from one of the circle friezes on this building.  However, we discovered much of the building was covered by scaffolding so we weren't able to find the exact one.

There was a fun market in the piazza outside the hospital that we explored for a while.  We tried some cheese with truffles.  I can't say I am a fan.

We found some dinner at a self-service restaurant where we could just point at what we wanted.  I had tortellini with ham and David had ravioli with mushrooms.  After dinner we explored the city by night.  One of my favorite places was the Loggia, which is an open air gallery full of amazing sculptures.  So much history and culture in Florence!