G’day folks. Time to continue with the story of my time in Firenze, (aka Florence), Italy 2023. If you read my previous post I took you through the first two days of my time in this amazing Tuscan city, and so today I continue on and write up with days three and four!

Day Three

The third full day in Florence saw a bit of an ecclesiastical pivot as I checked out three of Florence’s finest churches, including one special one that is the final resting place to some of the Renaissance’s finest.

I was staying very close to what at least appeared to be the biggest square in Florence, the Piazza del Duomo – actually the large cathedral and the Battistero di San Giovanni take up much of the space, but it still the place to get your selfies done and it feels like you’ve hit the middle of Florence. You can even hire push bikes through apps and there are a number of restaurants that stretch into the piazza which don’t represent great value for money, but it’s a great place to relax with a beer or for a meal.

The Duomo di Firenze, or Florence Cathedral, or the Cathedral of Saint Maria di Fiore, (Maria of the Flowers) is the number one cathedral in town, and there are a few ways to visit. There is a ticket office in the square where you can purchase tickets to the tower, to the dome (I think), guided tour or more, it’s a bit costly and can sell out days in advance depending on the ticket. Nothing that appealed to me was available the day I went (and I didn’t know about booking in advance) so I just went for what a lot of tourists do and waited outside the front door in a queue for a while – 20 minutes at a guess – and saw the cathedral including the dome from below for free.

If you really want to see EVERYTHING in Florence, you are going to need to bring a bit of coin with you, as it was I spent a fair of money for me but still had to be realistic – one of the reasons I didn’t visit the Galleria Academica. A WORD OF WARNING also when it comes to money in Florence. I received a text on a long bus journey a couple of weeks later when I was in Morocco. It was my bank. Someone had made a copy of my debit card and was trying to use it in the Philippines and someone else in Thailand. Luckily all transactions were blocked, I only put a small amount into that account as I need.

My card had been ‘skimmed’ I think is the word in Florence at one of the ATMs there. So be aware! I would advise doing your best to find a bank and use an official bank ATM – not so easy to find I found – to reduce the chances of this happening. Luckily it was only affected for the last few weeks of the trip and I had another card and had been saving my cash for that part of the trip as it was Africa. But there you go!

Back to the Duomo, there was a bag check and metal detector to enter, something that’s pretty common in churches that receive tourists etc these days. Which is you know, fair enough. A little history of the Duomo – construction was commenced in 1296, however due to many factors including the death of architects and the Black Death, it was not completed until 1430. It’s 153 metres in length, a width of 90 metres and a height of 114.5 metres.

You can see the church from a lot of different points in Florence and certainly as you approach via the many streets that lead to the square. Inside it is very impressive too and the most impressive part is looking up at that dome. The dome has many paintings on it including some by Donatello. Otherwise it’s a large impressive cathedral with art work from Dante, Giorgi Vasari and more – much of the art comes after the completion of the cathedral. Anyways, this cathedral CAN be seen for free and is definitely one to visit when in Florence.

And then I took a little wander through the Florence streets to head to the second church of the day, and that was the probably the highlight of the day and the ‘if you only visit one church when in Florence, make it this church’ church. And that is the Basilica di Santa Croce.

It’s an 800 metre walk from Santa Maria di Flore, and every walk in Florence is interesting and I found my way through gateways and down little streets. Santa Croce has its own piazza, (Piazza di Santa Croce) and the buildings surrounding it were pretty awesome. Not sure how to describe them but that’s what photos are for!

The Basilica de Santa Croce does charge an entry fee – 14 Euro for an adult, 11 Euro for a child. The church is an interesting mix of Gothic and Renaissance architecture, being completed in 1385 after ground was broken some 90 years before it. It’s got some impressive stain glass windows, cloisters and chapels/other rooms to check out, but it’s the people buried here which make it significant more than any other reason.

We are talking about the graves of Galileo, and monuments which look like graves to Leonardo Da Vinci, Dante, Machiavelli (there are claims he is buried there, and counter claims too which are probably more truthful), Rossini the composer just to name a few. Yes, it’s a veritable ‘who’s who’ of the Renaissance!

My day saw me take more of a walk around Florence and I found myself in the delightful Piazza della Repubblica where there was a little carousel and portrait painting/drawing. A nice place to just spend a little time. From there it was to the third church for the day.

The church was the Basilica di San Lorenzo, a church erected by the Medici family in the 1400s. The church is perhaps a little less significant than the other two but still well worth a visit. It’s connected to a little museum inside the tombs connected to the basilica.

On a street leading to/from the basilica is a street market leading to the Mercato Centrale with loads of stalls where you can buy loads of stuff, a little souvenir-y and heaps of leather products, primarily handbags and belts. I wandered around to the Mercato Centrale where I found a huge food court on the top level. It looked amazing, so I decided to eat there on the final day.

Day Four

The final full day in Florence was one with a number of tasks to get through, a bit of editing and packing, preparing for the big push to Africa. After a good five nights in Florence I was flying from Florence to Tangier – well not literally it was to be mostly by train. I had tickets to print and contacted Graham, friend of the blog who I was meeting in three days time in Barcelona.

So I only had two things planned for the day. Firstly to visit the Palazzo Medici Riccardi, a palace that was not too far from where I was staying. Built between 1444 and 1484CE today it’s a chance to look inside (another) palace where the Medici Family did a bit of business, a bit of ruling and the like. It was worth a look – cost of 10 Euro but it’s not nearly as big as the other palaces I visited (although not so much of it is open to the public too).

There are a number of portraits of various Medicis and a little museum too. As you can tell, I didn’t rate it so highly but if you compare anything to the Palazzo Pitti it’s probably not coming up favourably.

Finally, I headed to the Central Market, where I headed upstairs to a wonderful food court with different shops and so much to eat. High quality place, we are not talking fast food, there were a couple of bars there too. I gravitated towards this butcher where for 23 Euros I had a steak and for a few extra I had some roasted potatoes, all cooked in these huge ovens whilst I waited. It was pretty awesome.

Below on the ground level were loads of food shops specialising in cured meats, cheeses and the like. All in all a great place to lose yourself in for an hour or two.

And thus ended my time in Florence really. I was up early ish the next day to make my way to the station via four trains to Nice. But that’s the NEXT chapter! Thanks for joining me today with a break down of my Florence experience. Take care wherever you are in the world – May the Journey Never End!