Firstly I’ll apologise for the number of photos in this post, there is a lot. But then again we crammed a lot into one day in Florence, probably more than we should and feet were aching by the end and we did around 12 miles in walking. As I’m sure lots of people know, there’s plenty to see in Florence and we wanted to have a good look at lots of it. The day was planned around what was busy, so the Duomo was done early and things like Piazza della Signoria were later in the day, as they are open air. You can’t do everything and we didn’t visit the Uffizi, Galleria dell’Accademia or the Santa Maria Novella Basilica. There will be other nuggets that require a few days in Florence to get to as well, or a tower to climb but for us we did well and maybe a revisit at some point will sort those parts. We started the day at Bologna station at 9am, walking down 4 levels to get to the Frecciarossa train, yes that’s right 4 floors down, it felt very odd going so far underground to get on a train, a high speed one at that, which would then rise to the surface after leaving the station. The journey to Florence was quick, but our abiding memory is mainly of tunnels as the line to Florence cuts through hills and towns on its way, so no viewing the lovely countryside (that would come the next day on our train north). We arrived in Florence and set off for the Duomo, it opens at 10.15, its free entry if you queue, which we did for around 40 mins to get in. We were glad to get that done early in the day and not pay for a tour, yes its a great sight from the outside but we were underwhelmed by the inner. Its big and the dome is beautifully decorated, but the rest is fairly plain and similar to other better basilicas in Bologna, sorry to those who are a fan but it didn’t cut mustard for us. Leaving the Duomo, we had a booking for Santa Croce later in the day, so we had around 5 hours to ourselves, so we wandered a bit. We grabbed an early lunch, which was washed down with a beer at 11.45am (Aperol for Linda!!) and headed for the Arno (the river running through Florence), admiring the Ponte Vecchio along the waters. We crossed the river to the west on Ponte Santa Trinita and explored the south side of the river, it was starting to get very hot, so we took shade in a couple of churches before we decided to head for Piazzale Michelangelo. A fools errand in such heat, but we were brave and walked up the steeps climb to the view. Reaching the summit we downed water and tried to cool off, the views are superb from here, but we should have taken longer on the walk and stopped for more refreshments. Descending down the front we passed lots of waterfalls and Porta San Niccolo, sitting under trees for half an hour to recover where Linda thought she had a little heat stroke. We took on lots of water, using fountains to top up bottles for a third time by the Porta, before slowly making our way to Santa Croce, the inside of this church holds the burial places of lots of famous Renaissance artists, plus others we’ve all heard of, it was the one place I wanted to visit.

The Piazza outside of Santa Croce was full of seating and stands, all ready for the final of the Calcio Storico Fiorentino an annual game between the Azzurri (blues-Santa Croce district), Rossi (Reds – Santa Maria Novella district), Verdi (Greens – San Giovanni district) and Bianchi (Whites – Santo Spirito district). Its a game which mixes football, rugby and wrestling, played on this sand covered square for 50 minutes in June, with 2 semi finals and the final. As we visited the Rossi and Azzurri had got through to play the final a few days later (won by the Azzurri). The stands and seating spoilt the views to the basilica along the square, however the inside is the main part of this stunning building. It was now nearly 5pm and we still had plenty to pack in, first we went to see Ponte Vecchio before walking past the Uffizi and through to Piazza della Signoria. I think by this point we’d walked by 4 or 5 wine windows, ignoring the need to stand in the street drinking a glass of wine. We instead headed to another café and grabbed more refreshments and food, before heading to refill bottles for a 4th time from another tap in a small park. we then walked back via the Duomo towards the train station, deciding to sit outside the closed Basilica Santa Maria Novella for a while to rest weary legs and enjoy the evening as the sun set. There was music playing as we sat, looking at the square, basilica and architecture around us. Before too long we headed to the station for our train back to Bologna and packing for the next day. A trip north to the Dolomites.